enc 4212, professional & technical editing on the road with assignment 4 week 11 usfsm fall 2015...

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing

On the Road with Assignment 4

Week 11 • USFSM • Fall 2015T. E. Roberts, Instructor

Length of this lecture audio (7 slides): 00:28:16Jot down the audio codes – you will be sending theWeek 11

and Week 12 codes with Assignment 4 by Nov. 30, 2015.© 2015, T. E. Roberts

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing - Fall 2015 - Week 11 - Slide 2 of 7

The Thief of Time Is Not a Petty Thief

• TIPS FROM AN EXCELLENT WRITER I HAVE KNOWN FOR MANY YEARS• Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop

Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy (about $9 on Amazon.com)

• OHIO = “Only Handle It Once” • DAFT = “Delegate It, Act On It, File It, or Toss It”

• MY OWN TIPS • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and

Life by Anne Lamott (about $10 on Amazon.com)• Do the hardest tasks first• Establish immediately achievable goals, meet

them, and reward yourself• Classify daydreaming and idle web-surfing as

“work” only if you can tolerate failure, scorn, pangs of conscience, and severe financial pressure


Option 1: Editing Test

• I recommend this option for students who have an interest in copy editing, journalism, and publication management.

• Send the tests to me by Nov. 13, 2015 6 p.m. I will send them to test-takers around Nov. 16, 2015.

• Test-takers’ scores will not be weighed in course grades, but they must return their completed test.

• The test will help you prepare for the actual final exam, to be taken via Canvas Dec. 6-9, 2015.


Option 2: Social Services Brochure

• This is usually the most common choice.

• Requires research into available services within the area in which you are focusing

• Drafting should be well under way this week (interviews, websites, printed sources)

• This will be highly useful experience in your career

• This can become a valuable part of your portfolio


Option 3: Customized Topic

• Topics include wide variety• User manuals for high-tech devices and mobile applications• Report on use of social media by ISIS and similar terrorists• Brochure and website on social networking for businesses• Brochure and website on LEED building standards

• All of these represent effective and challenging application of professional writing and editing skills


How Do I Create a Website?

• Why don’t our USFSM PTC courses provide direct instruction in website creation?• Insufficient time to cover more than the basics• Many tutorials already available• Useful application of students’ autodidactic abilities

• Most software instruction belongs in continuing education courses outside our academic offerings

• With the help of PTC instructor John Stewart (now on the Resident Faculty), we are able to offer more of this instruction

• Easiest website or blogging solution is WordPress


Keep Your Reader Constantly in Mind

• The PTC major focuses on helping you understand and serve your readers and users

• Begin with the basics and advance to full professional status• Simple documents, simple purposes -- explain, inform, illustrate,

instruct, warn• Grasp the Aristotelian triad and apply it to everything you write ...

sender / message / receiver• Perform at ever-higher levels of complexity and subtlety• Gain proficiency in all relevant media (English language, print,

web, video, audio, broadcast, and others not yet known)• Balance the abstract (rhetoric, philosophy, intellect, academic

ideas) and the concrete (tangible, pragmatic, down-to-earth, immediate results)


Send Questions Now

• Don’t wait until crunch time

• Create a Gantt chart to track your progress (this is not as crazy as it might sound)

• Record all sources and references

• A draft does not have to be (in fact should not be) “perfect”! Don’t censor yourself -- just write freely.

• Your biggest challenge is not the research and writing but the rewriting and editing!

enc 4212, professional & technical editing on the road with assignment 4 week 11 usfsm fall 2015...

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