CHAPTER 17

Editing Screen Text for Learning

In This Chapter

•  What is the purpose of editing?

•  How do you conduct a substantive edit or a copy edit?

•  What is the most efficient process of editing?

Editing text is different from editing in audio and video production. When digital text is ready for editing, the words have already been assembled in order and the sequence or flow is more or less satisfactory. What is required at this point is a review to ensure the content is accurate, the structure flows logically in a way that makes sense to the reader, words are spelled correctly, and nontext elements like audio, video, and graphics function correctly.

In many learning departments, the task of editing often falls to the person on the team who has a good eye for detail or just likes grammar. This person usually has an instinctive set of skills that keeps you out of trouble. However, editing is a professional process that follows its own work flow, and these skills can be learned with practice. In different fields, the work flow may have slightly different nuances, but it is always consistent. A newspaper copy editor will have a different take from a technical editor who works on instructional manuals, while a book editor will come from yet a different perspective.

If editing is not your primary occupation, as it most likely is not for the learning professional, you just want your final text to be accurate, easy to read, and functional for the reader. So you’re probably less inclined to care which methodology to follow. For that reason, we’re going to be less concerned about a standard approach to editing digital text than with what you need to consider as you check your own or someone else’s content.

When you have created your text, you need to check the substance of the content and its correctness. The substance refers to the accuracy of the content, its structure, and the construction of individual paragraphs and sentences. This is an analytical task that requires editorial judgment. The correctness is making sure words are spelled correctly and everything on the page works. This is a more methodical task that requires you to check the way text has been written against rules of usage and corporate style guides. Aspects of these two stages overlap, but it is handy to see them separately to ensure you remain focused when you edit.

This chapter will run through these in more detail. While these steps relate to digital text, whether it be a PowerPoint slide, an email, or a discussion board, the examples will be based on a learning article, such as a blog post or piece of instructional content in a learning management system.

Conducting a Substantive Edit

When conducting a substantive edit, you need to check your content’s accuracy, macrostructure, and microstructure.

Accuracy

At this stage, don’t worry about checking for spelling mistakes or grammar. Your text may change many times and spending time correcting words that may not even end up in your final article is a waste of time. Instead, read through the article and check all the facts. This could include names of people mentioned, dates and times of events, names of brands and locations, and names of theories. Check that what is said is correct. For example, if you are writing about “I statements” in an article on conflict resolution, make sure the article is consistent with best practice by checking other sources. If sources are being quoted, check these too. If you are a subject matter expert, you may not need to conduct research on these facts because you know them well. But if in doubt, check it.

You can conduct an accuracy edit by simply reading through the article, writing down any facts or assumptions that need to be checked on a separate piece of paper, then going and checking them in turn. If you wrote the article yourself, it could be a good idea to have a subject matter expert check it over for you.

Macrostructure

When you are happy with the accuracy of your content, you should review how it flows. Remember, the purpose of text editing is to make the ideas you are writing about quicker and easier to understand for your learner. So keep in mind how your reader is likely to see the content. Think about what experiences she may use to make sense of it.

Read through the article and note the major sections. Don’t get bogged down in the detail; this is about getting a sense of the overall flow. Does each section flow from one to the next in a logical order? If you’re writing about how to make a cup of coffee, do you explain the steps in a way that will make sense for the reader? This is a process of analysis for which you must exercise editorial judgment because there is probably no right or wrong answer, just a better or worse answer.

Does the article have a strong introduction that gives the reader the “what’s in it for me?” rationale? Does it have a strong summary? Are the headings positioned at the key stages of the article to develop the ideas? How about analogies being used—are they familiar enough to make sense for the learner? How about the links—are words or phrases in the article that may not be familiar to readers linked to other articles that will shed light on them? And do you have multimodal content such as audio, video, or graphics positioned at appropriate points in the article? Are they the best pieces of content for the narrative or can you recommend better ones? Also, do you have permission to use them? Make sure you have licenses or release forms.

Microstructure

When you are satisfied that the sections of the article are blocked together in a way that’s quick and easy to understand, it’s time to review the microstructure. Some folks are inclined to review both the macro- and microstructures at the same time, but it can be helpful to treat these as separate tasks.

The task of reviewing microstructure is less about how the ideas block together and more about how clear the building blocks are. It’s about making sure paragraphs, sentences, headings, and other elements quickly make sense to the reader.

As mentioned, people read digital text differently from printed text, so you need to look for different elements. You also need to maintain a visual sense of how the article appears on the screen the learner uses.

Make sure paragraphs contain one idea and are short, preferably two sentences. This may mean breaking up a long paragraph into several. Check that sentences front-load their message, consist of one clause, and are written mostly in the active voice. Replace abstract nouns with verbs and make sure the words are concrete. Review each word in each sentence to be sure it’s necessary, removing it if it’s not. And look at lists to be sure they are constructed in parallel phrases.

Checking clarity extends to other textual elements such as headings, captions, and hyperlinks. Headings should be written in parallel—for example, if three of your four headings are written as nouns and the fourth is a phrase, you should adjust the fourth to a noun. Captions should be front-loaded and add new information that is not obvious in the picture. To ensure consistency, it is easier to review all headings at once, all captions at once, all links at once, and so forth.

Remember to review word choice based on your audience, and be sure the tone is informal. Complex words should be replaced with simple words that are quick and easy to recognize. Make sure the text is consistently in first, second, or third person.

Once the substantive edit has been finished, the article should be in good shape. It will be accurate, flow easily for the reader in a logical way, and the actual words, sentences, paragraphs, and other supporting elements will be clear and consistent. Now it’s time to check that everything is correct.

Conducting a Copy Edit

In the newspaper world, the copy editor is the last person to check an article. She will read through and make sure the spelling is correct and everything is in good grammatical shape. There’s little point worrying about this review until you have conducted the substantive edit, simply because you may find yourself correcting sentences or even paragraphs that end up on the proverbial chopping block.

At the copy edit stage, you need to be disciplined and not make substantial changes to the text. It’s a good idea to adopt a style guide for editing. You could use the Chicago Manual of Style or develop your own. The key to making your content professional is to be consistent with how you present your information. Here are a few things to look out for as you engage in the copy edit.

First, make sure all the words are spelled correctly. You can use spell-check on a word processor for this at a first glance, but don’t rely on it. Do a check yourself to be sure words like there, their, or they’re are used properly. Check that peoples’ names are spelled correctly, along with locations, brand names, and technical terms. Don’t forget to check captions and hyperlinks, which may be outside the body text.

Second, check for grammar and punctuation. You will be less constrained by traditional grammar for digital text than for simple punctuation. If you have periods after headings and bullets (although this is not recommended), make sure they come after all of them. Be consistent in the way you use bullets and dashes.

Check that all the links in the article work. This is a detail-orientated task that takes time, but doing it before you publish to the learning management system is easier than fielding emails about broken links. If your page is up for a while, create a document that lists all the links and put it on your calendar to check whether they’re still live in three months’ time.

Examine the images you are using. Do they have alt tags? Alt tags are short pieces of text that describe an image. In certain browsers such as Internet Explorer, when you roll your mouse over an image this text will pop up. Alt tags were designed for viewing web documents without images and for people who use screen readers, which cannot describe a picture. These are important for accessibility. Also check that the images have been optimized for the web. Original images such as photos are usually very large file sizes because they have high resolutions. Optimizing an image is the process of compressing the file size so it downloads quickly. (Many learning management systems do this for you but if yours doesn’t, double-check your images.) While checking for optimized images is not strictly about text, it’s still an important review while editing.

Check any videos you are embedding in the article. First, make sure they work. If you are embedding a video from a site like YouTube that someone else has produced and maintains, put a note on your calendar to check periodically that they haven’t changed it or taken it down. Test the video from your site. If the video is something you have created and uploaded, see how it looks when you play it within your page, and adjust the settings so it plays the way you want. For example, in Vimeo you can adjust settings that automatically load another related video after the first one has stopped playing or have it simply start again. What do you want? Be consistent with your videos so they all follow the same settings. Also, some video sites will give you the option to take their logos off the video. All are elements worth considering.

Finally, look at how the page will be viewed by the reader. Check the display in multiple browsers. If your content will be viewed mostly by people on a cell phone, review it on a cell phone to make sure the formatting works.

The Process of Editing

One of the biggest obstacles to editing is being too close to your text. Because you’re familiar with it, it’s easy to skip over words that would normally stand out. So create some distance between you and the text. Take a break after writing so you can approach the text with a fresh mind. If time permits, edit it the next day.

It also helps to have someone else review your text for you. If you get someone else, be clear about what you want them to do. If you want a substantive edit, be clear you’re not interested in typos and grammar. If it’s a copy edit, tell them you’re not changing the article. That way they are focused and won’t give you feedback you don’t want.

It’s a good idea to print your text out and edit off paper. This helps create distance because it’s physically and visually different from the screen. You can also more easily mark the page, unless you’re working in some word processing software. Some people insist they’re fine editing off a screen but to me paper is more deliberate and slows you down, reducing distractions from email or other applications.

Editing requires a lot of concentration, so do it in short bursts. While editing a single article is not going to be an all-day task, you may be tasked with reviewing 20 articles, blog posts, or pieces of digital content. If you do them all in one sitting, you’ll find your energy and concentration is difficult to sustain.

Editing is also a solo task, so make sure to work where you won’t have distractions such as other people or media devices. It’s impossible to give your text full attention if you have a radio or television in the background that fights for space in your working memory and increases the load on your sensory memory. Some people argue they can and do so admirably, but if they did not have these distractions their concentration would be better and they’d work faster.

There are many old tricks that editors use that you may find useful. Some editors will read backwards from the last word to the first so that they consider each word on its own. That way they are not distracted by the sentence structure or other things as they read. Others will take a piece of paper and read from the top, but cover all the words below the line they are currently reading so they don’t get distracted.

Don’t attempt to achieve all your editing tasks in one read-through. Your brain wasn’t designed like that. Allow yourself the time to do several read-throughs. Start with the substantive edit. Check the accuracy, then the structure, then the microstructure. After these three read-throughs, move on to the copy edit. When you do the copy edit, check all the headings at once. All the links at once. All the captions. It will be easier on your brain to pick up things that go wrong and ensure consistency.

Summary

The purpose of editing is making your text quicker and easier for your reader to understand. Editors from different traditions will debate certain ways to approach the edit, but what’s most important is that you make sure the content is accurate and easy to read. The approaches in this chapter can become a start for your own approach and will help you avoid any major problems.

However, there is one thing worth noting. Just about every newspaper, book publisher, and e-learning publisher has paid scrupulous attention to editing and then, after the content has been published, discovered a typo. It’s going to happen, so don’t beat yourself up if you miss something. Just make sure you fix it and remember that we’re all human.