ENG2730 Professional Editing and Revising, Spring 2025

–Final Exam review (business letter proofing and fixing passive sentences): The exam (Tuesday, May 20) will cover the first sixteen markup symbols on page 51 in Rude, plus the symbols on page 53 for period, comma, colon, and semicolon. Make sure to know how to identify and correct passive sentences.

Agenda:

–In-class Presentations! Please submit Part 2 by midnight tonight (email submission with proper file name protocol)

–Review Part 3, especially WAVE analysis tool (watch video and review student example)

WAVE: Wave Accessibility Evaluation Tool [Source: Institute for Disability Research, Policy & Practice at Utah State University]

WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are part of a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) [Source: Wikipedia article on WCAG]

ARIA is a W3C specification that stands for “Accessible Rich Internet Applications.” It consists of markup that can be added to HTML in order to communicate the roles, states, and properties of user interface elements to assistive technologies (AT). This information helps screen readers and other AT to better understand the elements on a web page and to provide a user interface that enables their users to effectively interact with those elements. [Source: University of Washington Accessible Technology]

W3C: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops standards and guidelines to help everyone build a web based on the principles of accessibility, internationalization, privacy and security. [Source: W3C]

ENG2730-FinalPart3-Student–Example

Homework for Tuesday, May 20 (LAST CLASS): Finish and submit Part 3 and prepare for the in-class Final Exam.

NOTE: Here is an idea that may help students organize Part 2:

–Copy and paste your five sentences into a Word document for easy manipulation

–Provide main message: #1

–Sentence one (for example): “Our park should be visited.”

#2 (sentence type): simple: there is one clause with one verb phrase

#3 (verbs): weak passive verb construction:  auxiliary verb “should” + be + past participle “visited”

#4 (Sentence Improvement):

Before: “Our park should be visited.”

After: “Please visit our park!” Changes made: rewrite verb phrase to simply an active verb (“visit”), added “please,” and added exclamation point for emphasis

–Sentence two…

Agenda:

1. Return graded work
2. Discuss the end of the semester
3. Website Project: Part 1 is due tonight
4. Website Project: Discuss Part 2: Revising Sentences and Presenting Improvement [Discuss “Using Verbs Effectively” handout]
5. Looking ahead: Website Project Part 3: Using the WAVE Accessibility Tool. WAVE stands for Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. https://wave.webaim.org/

Homework: Part 1 is due tonight. Please come to class on Thursday (May 8) so that we can discuss and work on Part 2.

Agenda:

Hello Students! Although attendance is not required, I do hope that each of you can attend for some of today.

1. I will hand back MCD parts 3 and 4

2. I also have quiz 2/3 graded to return

3. Let’s try to get as much of the Website Assessment Part 1 finished as we can

4. Discussion of Part 1 and 2

*****Click here for the Assignment menu tab for final project details

Due to travel, I will not be able to hold office hours this Wednesday or Thursday. Please email me if you have questions.

End-of-semester schedule:

April 29: Quiz 2/3 and getting started on the final project

May 6: Part 1 is due

May 13: Part 2 is due

May 20: Part 3 is due AND Final Exam (in-class, worth 40 points)

Agenda:

1–Quiz 2/3 (I will explain the “2/3” designation)

2–Table homework: discuss and submit

3–Website Design and beginning our final project

10 Parts of a Book and Website:

Example 1: OpenLab: OpenLab-10 parts of Website

Example 2: ABC: ABC-10 parts of website

Website Organization:

4 Structures:

1-Hierarchical: most common. Uses home-sub-subsub organization. Example: Macy’s, H&M, etc.

2-Linear/Sequential: series of steps, tells a story, focuses on user journey. Example: most e-commerce sites use a sequential structure at the checkout stage of a purchase.

3-Network/Matrix: complex sites like NYTimes mixes content and navigation

4-Database (interactive displays including many cards, comments, pins, posts, etc. Pinterest and Airbnb are examples)

7 Types of Websites:

1-Blog

2-Business

3-E-commerce

4-Non-profit

5-Education

6-Entertainment

7-Portfolio

What is the organization and type:

https://rivian.com/

https://www.aldaily.com/

https://www.thomaspeschak.com/

Important: review final project instructions, especially the two options for website assessment

NOTE: 

[From Caroline Rude, Chapter 17: Organization: The Architecture of Information, p. 287]

Principles of Content Organization:

Does the website:

1. Follow a pre-established structure?
2. Anticipate reader questions and needs?
3. Arrange information from general to specific and from familiar to new?
4. Apply conventional patterns of organization, such as matching structure to meaning?
5. Group related material?
6. Use parallel structure for parallel sections (sections, paragraphs, headings)?

Students may want to read the chapter section for more information on this six principles: pages 287-293. But please be aware that she is mainly talking about printed material organization while I am talking about website organization.

UPDATE: I fixed the typo in the table homework. All column titles should be H4, bold, Ariel, not H3, bold 10.5. Sorry for the confusion. See below for the corrected version.

Agenda:

1–MCD Part 3 presentations

2–Tables, Measurements, Abbreviations:

–Best practices for graphs, charts, and tables by David McMurrey:

https://mcmassociates.io/textbook/tables.html

–Symbols,  measurements, and abbreviations

Updated-measurements-apr-22-2025

Updated-Study-guide-for-symbols-and-measurements-2730-2025

Helpful APA guides:

numbers-statistics-guide-APA

abbreviations-guide-APA

Homework:

1–Read the McMurrey chapter on Tables (just tables, not the entire chapter)

2–Read Chapter 12 in Rude (but ignore pages 200-205 as we will not have time to cover mathematical equations or statistics) and complete the following assignments:

3–Complete this table homework:

Updated version: All column titles should be Heading 4, bold, Ariel (not H3, 10.5). I apologize for that confusing typo.

Create MS Word Table-s2025-u

4–Study for Quiz 3 which will cover Tables, Measurements, and Abbreviations (the quiz will be next Tuesday, April 29)

Agenda:

–Review MCD Part 2

–Discuss MCD Part 3 outlines

–Discuss MCD Part 4: Reflection Essay

–Discuss information architecture and tables

Homework due Tuesday, April 22 (after spring break):

–In-class presentation day for MCD Part 3 

–Submit MCD Part 4 (Reflection Essay) via email to Prof. Scanlan by 5 pm (April 22)

TWO NOTES FOR TUESDAY’S HOMEWORK: 

1–Students do not have to produce an outline. If a list is easier, then go with that. If you wish to just start making the changes to your document, then go with that. Please keep track of each change by numbering them.

2–For next Tuesday’s PART III, I ask:

2. Students should explain to the class why they made each change and how to make the changes in MS Word.

Here are two suggestions for tackling the why part:

For example, if you want to change the title of the MCD article to blue. Link that color of blue to something meaningful: State that the company logo uses the same blue and this would help readers make that connection. Or, perhaps that color has been shown to reduce stress (reference needed).

Another example: perhaps you want to increase the margins. Find an article from a tech writing journal/website that says the most common magazine margin is the margin you want to change it to.

Hope this helps,

Prof. Scanlan

Agenda:

–Review MCD Part 1

–Discuss MCD Part 2

–Discuss MCD Part 3 instructions

–Formatting and beginning information architecture and tables

Key Questions:

1–How do readers read technical information? [Slowly, with curiosity, scan first]

2–What formatting tools help technical editors present information in a document?

1–Space/spacing

2–Color

3–Size

4–Font type

5–Indenting

6–Italics/Bold/Underline

7–Lists

8–Headings–sections

9–Graphics

10–Charts

11–There are many more… (page division)

Example: chapter 4 page-by-page

Source: Graphicdesignforum.com

Homework due Tuesday, April 8: Printed Outline of MCD Part 3–so that I can review it with each student

https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspective-videos/contrast/

Agenda:

–Review Sentence types and commas

–Review the complexity of “that”

The Complexity of That

–Review Quiz 1

–Discuss Part 1–how did it go?

–Discuss Part 2–style sheet

–MS Word: electronic markup–and the second part of the Midterm Project

Homework for Tuesday, April 1

Turn in part 2 of the Midterm Project.

Hi Class,

Here is a helpful handout on sentence construction:

 All sentences fall into just four categories

And here is a helpful handout on commas:

Comma-Confidence

Agenda:

–Quiz 1

–Review conditional sentences

–In-class time to work on the Midterm Project.

–MS Word: electronic markup–and the second part of the Midterm Project

Homework:

Turn in part 1 of the Midterm Project by next Tuesday, before class.

Note 1: Here is another possible technical document that I can make into a Midterm Project document. This peer reviewed article excerpt is from the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication: A note on equipment and machinery-Enos-2730Midterm

Let me know if this seems more appealing that the Mad Cow Disease document. Remember, if you want to select your own project document, it must be technical and it must be at least 1,000 words. Endnotes and/or bibliography are also needed.

Note 2: We will practice MS Word track changes and comments next week. But I recommend watching this 12-minute video if you are new to Word or new to track changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vho4gSlnf4&t=29s

Agenda:

–Pop Quiz 2

–Review homework

–What are style sheets:

First-Style-Sheet-Exercise-2730

–Beginning the Midterm Project (MS Word Markup)

Homework Due Thursday, March 13

1–Read chapter 15 (Style: Definition and Sentence Structures) in Rude

2–Prepare for Quiz 1 (25 points) by reviewing: Markup symbols, punctuation marks, Sentence corrections–modifier issues, active and passive verbs, and parts of speech