Editing Analysis Assignment

Scenario

You are an editor employed by a non-profit organization that runs the program described in the source document, which is a draft of an annual program report. Your charge is to oversee a substantive edit of the draft, working with the author and two other program staffers, who should do most of the actual rewriting. The parent organization intends to route the final version of the report to its management, board, funders, potential funders, and other readers interested in evaluating the success of the program and possibly investing in its future.

Note: Although the source document is a real-world example, the scenario assumes an invented context, including a fictional parent organization that offers a variety of programs related to environmental education and that employs an extensive staff.

Memo audience and purpose

Address the author and staffers assigned to edit the draft. You should provide a persuasive proposal for a substantive and collaborative revision of the source document. You must identify and propose (not order or assume) possible improvements in all areas of the editing analysis table, offering your services as editor to assist the authors in a team effort revision.

Memo content

• Use the Comprehensive Editing Analysis Table to develop your ideas for the memo content.
  • Reference: Technical Editing, 5th ed: chapters 3, 14, & 23 (in 4th ed: chapters 3, 14, & 24)
• Address ALL of the editing issues identified in the Comprehensive Editing Analysis Table. Be creative in imagining original ways to rewrite the draft: Consider content gaps and overlaps; effective organizing strategies; high impact visual design; ways to deliver holistic messages with infographics and other images; fluent, direct style choices; etc.
• Refer to the attachments in text, explaining their intended use; do not include them in the memo.

Memo organization

• Do NOT apply the structure of the Comprehensive Editing Analysis Table.
  • Instead, organize the body text strategically and rhetorically.
  • Reference: Student examples showing alternative approaches (not models/do not copy)
• Include a brief reader-centered opening that establishes your role and goals.
• Include a brief closing that addresses deliverables, schedule, and responsibilities.

Memo presentation

• Use section headings and other visual devices for navigation, reference, and prioritizing.
• Link sentences, paragraphs, and sections effectively; minimize use of bullets or lists.
• Use active style and language of good relationships: confident, professional, tactful, collegial.
• Establish your own credibility and clarity by modeling surface correctness.

Required attachments (required for final, NOT for draft)

A separate document on iLearn provides additional details about the following attachments.

1. Style sheet (in box or list format)
2. Annotated outline for entire revised document, indicating all headings and subheadings
3. Example new section of text, demonstrating proposed style and paragraph cohesion

Specifications

• Minimum three page memo (in format specified below)
  • Single spacing after punctuation
  • Headings in bold (and separated by an extra line space above)
  • Business single spacing (un-indented paragraphs, separated by line spacing)
  • Left block memo format (TO/FROM/DATE/SUBJECT headers; no signature block)
  • Standard indents and margins and non-default typeface in approximately this font size
• Plus THREE additional attachments (positioned after the memo in sequence indicated above)

Draft

Submit the initial memo draft (with NO attachments).

Final 

• Combine the final memo AND three attachments, then save as a SINGLE PDF file.
• Before you upload, be sure that the file includes all of the required elements.