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SeekingEditorialAssistancePost a short notice here with your email address if you'd like editorial assistance from other Shapers. They can then get in touch with you and you can work out a deal between you. Willing to provide editorial assistance, and probably in need of some in return around Summer or Fall 2003 when I develop my masters thesis. I've assisted JR on her book on Technical Hiring. I have strengths in seeing readability / interpretation weaknesses and finding better layouts (except for my own, of course!) I can be a reference for Bob (YEAH BOB!) and am also willing to provide review services. Just not during January when I'm "finishing" my last version of the book before Dorset House gets it and changes every other word :-) JohannaRothman 2003.01.04 Also willing to provide review and editorial suggustions - but not proofing ;-) Perhaps C. Keith will vouch for me. (I'll reserve the right to decline if I'm in a crunch.) Esther (ED,ed.) BTW, Bob, I had a little mantra that helped me finish my thesis: "It doesn't have to be brilliant. It doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be done." ED Bob, A wise professor once told me that there were two reasons why students had trouble finishing their theses.
So, beware. - JerryWeinberg 2003.01.06 Jerry, That's interesting advice. I prefer to think of finishing a paper, not the thesis. A 3-month thesis development is necessarily smaller in scope than the territory of interest. I hope to use it as an intermediate review point rather than "finality". Is that "bewared" enuf? - BobLee 2003.01.07 Confessions of a practicing editor I make part of my living editing. Here are some techniques for applying your own editorial assistance. I use these on my own writing, too. I always edit on paper. I find I don�t see the structure of a piece as well when I�m working on a screen. Having paper in my hands allows me to flip through pages looking at the size of sections or scanning the flow of subheads. I also find it easier to go back and re-read a section, on paper than on the screen. Get a feel for the article Sometimes the first part of the piece will be jumbly or dull. Authors often produce clumsy beginnings in their struggle to get started, so the first paragraphs are not always a good basis on which to judge a manuscript. Many of us were taught in school to start with a long wind-up � wind-ups work for pitchers but are deadly for writing. Bad beginning to articles are easily corrected, so if the beginning bog you down, skip down a ways and start reading there. Are there parts where you wanted to read more? Are there parts that feel like a detour? Understand the structure Read though the notes margin notes in order. Do the topics jump back and forth? Do they seem to progress and build on each other? This usually tells me where I need to start re-ordering to create a logical flow. Once in a while, I come across an article (like the one I am trying to write now) that is truly jumbleacious. I get out my scissors and cut the sections and paragraphs apart. I sort the slips of paper into piles and label the piles to understand the underlying structure of the ideas. Sometimes I tape the sections back together in different order to see how it will flow. (The physical form of cut and paste.) Look for reader interest Will the opening tell the reader why it is in it for her to keep reading? The author needs to capture the readers interest by the first two paragraph. The more the author can use these paragraphs to help the reader to identify with her, or with the problem he�s writing about, the more likely the reader will continue reading. Most readers (especially magazine) readers flip through looking for something that catches their interest. You have about 20 seconds. I would love to know how you apply these techniques and how you feel they have helped you (or not helped you). I will add to this as I notice other things I do. EstherDerby 010703 Thank you Esther - that's great advice! KeithRay 2003.01.07 Any writers working on pieces out there who need assistance? I started to review an article for a non-AYEr yesterday. I had trouble reading the first paragraph. So I ran some calculations: 23% passive sentences, 38 reading ease, and 12 grade level. No wonder I couldn't get through the first paragraph. I edited the first two paragraphs to show the author what to do, and I expect to hear back from him in another week or so. Anyone else have the problem of your words getting in your way? I do this all the time. Sometimes I add bloat to the article. Sometime my sentence structure is broken. The result is that my article (or part of it) is unreadable. I need editing to help me become unstuck. -- JohannaRothman 2003.02.06 Johanna, I have to ask - what grade level are you looking for? I have a long time debate with an acquaintance. SherryHeinze 2003.02.06 Sherry, I try to write for grade levels 8-10. At grade 8, I can put more humor in. At grade 10, even managers will still read the piece, because it's more readable. When I get to grade 11, it's time to restructure sentences, cut words, rewrite. At grade 12, it may be time for me to start all over again. What does your colleauge think? -- JohannaRothman 2003.02.07 JR - curiousity: what tool or guide do you use to compute "grade level" is that one of the dark nooks of MS Word or some other tool? Is that the old "Fogg factor(?)" algorithm? BobLee 2003.02.07 Bob, I use Word's grammar checking feature. It reports on number of words, words per sentence, all that stuff. On the bottom, it reports % passive voice, Flesch reading ease, and grade level. There's another tools for Word, I think called Clearedits, http://www.clearedits.com/, that that I might buy if I continue to use Word. -- JohannaRothman 2003.02.07 My acquaintance says write at Grade 10 level for the man in the street. For the man in the street, I say Grade 8. For a professional group, I might go to Grade 10, but not for people at random. Curiousity forced me to check the articles I wrote for this website, once I released I could do it in Word. They came out as 8.0, 9.0 and 9.8. SherryHeinze 2003.02.07 I just looked at the Word Help for Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease. Word Help recommends aiming for a reading ease of 60 - 70 on a 100 point scale. Higher is better. The Grade Level for standard documents is 7.0 - 8.0, My current in-progress column is 10.3. Hmmmm. So what about passive sentences? Should we never use passive voice, or is there a place for it? EstherDerby 020803 The book I like "Style: toward clarity and grace" by Joseph M. Williams says that a small amount of passive voice is ok when not doing so would disrupt the subject of a paragraph -- his example was a paragraph about a country, call it Elbonia, where each sentence's subject is describing Elbonia. The one passive sentence says that Elbonia "was founded in 1989 by the Adams Family". To make that an active sentence would make the sentence's subject become "the Adams familiy", disrupting the flow of the paragraph. Examples: Two passive sentences: Elbonia is a small, tropical island surrounded by smarter countries. It has extensive mud beaches, which support both tourism and pig farming. Elbonia was founded in 1989 by the Adams family. The island is presently ruled by an elite group of morons. Elbonia gained entrance to the U.N., but left the building through the servant's entrance. No passive sentences: Elbonia is a small, tropical island surrounded by smarter countries. It has extensive mud beaches, which support both tourism and pig farming. In 1989 the Adams family founded Elbonia. An elite group of morons presently rules the island. Elbonia gained entrance to the U.N., but left the building through the servant's entrance. KeithRay 2003.02.08 Johanna, Thanks for the reference on Clearedits. I will check it out. I am interested in any other writing tools/software if folks know of any others that they find helpful. I also use Joseph William's book, Style : Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, having used the first edition in an advanced college writing class over 20 years ago. This has been a helpful text. I have the latest revision as well (7th revision). I would have to agree with Keith about liking this book; but I am a SJ. Also, Jerry has a wonderful book in progress about writing. Hopefully, it will be published sometime soon. I think this work will help many technical folks (or any one who desires to improve their writing) improve their writing and facilitate clear communication. Esther, As a general observation, I notice that the medical and certain portions of the scientific community often use the passive voice in their writings. Apparently, it supposed to emphasize being objective in their approach to solving problems or supporting their hypotheses. It often makes the reading difficult and dry at times. --JohnSuzuki 2003.02.11 Passive voice is useful when you want to convey the feeling of having something done to you :-) I reviewed an article Nancy Ross wrote that used passive voice in exactly the right way. I look for passive voice to excise it. Sometimes, I'll keep a passive voice sentence, but I think hard about whether I want to. The more passive voice, the harder the piece is to read. John only said passive voice was dry. I'll be stronger: passive voice puts me to sleep. -- JohannaRothman 2003.02.11 I'll second JR's objection to the passive voice. For me, passive voice lacks attribution (who said so?) and makes it harder to question assumptions stated passively. (It is well known that ...) Both of those aspects of passive construction bother me and make constructive comments subliminally more difficult. See Jerry's Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design book for this and other ways that language can short out critical thinking. BobLee 2003.02.12 Thanks, Bob and others, for the nice things you say here. We're running a special writing thread on the Shape forum where people contribute drafts of articles and Shapers critique them. Then the authors rewrite them, and the cycle continues until the author is satisfied. We're on our second article now, and the process is working wonders. The first article, by LaurentBossavit, will be on the AYE articles list, soon, I hope. JerryWeinberg 2003.02.16 Is Monday 2/17 soon enough? :-) ED Soon enough! And, voila! It's there. GMW 5:00 AM Saturday, 2003.03.01 I've written an 770-word essay "The Secret of Agile Development" and would like feedback (and publication offers!). Please contact me if you want to review it .
Updated: Saturday, March 1, 2003 |
