Practices and Processes
Editing Final Project and Analysis
Practices and Processes
This comprehensive editing project was produced for the MSTC course “Principles of Technical Editing” and demonstrates the “Practices and Processes” outcome labeled “flexible strategies for drafting, revising, and editing,” as well as “Understand the collaborative and social aspects of research, writing, and design processes.”
This comprehensive editing project required extensive editing of a guide to laws for alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. I selected an audience and edited the document according to their needs. I chose to edit the document for international students at Southern Utah University.
While completing this project, I edited and revised the document, keeping my audience in mind throughout. This included analyzing grammar, spelling, and aspects such as language barriers, culture shock, and cultural norms. For example, I removed all figures of speech from the document and used as clear language as possible. I also accounted for different cultural norms, such as different drinking ages, and explained these differences more thoroughly. This required me to demonstrate an awareness of cultural patterns in communication.
I also worked with peers to receive feedback to develop my document. I completed several editing cycles where I received insight on adapting my document better to meet my audience’s needs.
This project demonstrates my growth as a user advocate, as it required me to consider different audiences and users. With this specific audience, failure to be a user advocate could have resulted in students not learning crucial laws that could influence their study abroad experience.
In addition, it also allowed me to expand my skills as an editor and analyze my decision-making process, further allowing me to expand my view of technical communication.
Grant Proposal for SAFE House Nevada
Practices and Processes
The MSTC program outcome of “Practices and Processes” requires students to develop flexible strategies for drafting, revising, and editing and understand the collaborative and social aspects of the research, writing, and design process. I was required to implement these learnings while working on a grant proposal for my TWC 543 Grant Writing course.
At the beginning of the MSTC program, I didn’t do well with collaboration, especially in editing. I could not give meaningful feedback to peers and often took offense from or did not consider the feedback I received. While working on this grant proposal, we had to give and receive feedback on some of our drafts. A particularly helpful peer pointed out where I had made mistakes and gave me clear and specific things to improve and work on.
The feedback was immensely helpful and helped me greatly improve my grant proposal.
This experience made me more willing to adapt to peer feedback and guidance and be a better collaborator and reviewer. Since this experience, I have used tools such as the “describe-evaluate-suggest” model of peer review to produce better work and be a better editor and team member to others.