PTC 624: Professional and Technical Editing

Instructor

Professor Norbert Elliot

Course Description

This seminar introduces students to contemporary editing strategies. As information managers within organizations, twenty-first century editors must be able to demonstrate proficiency in a wide range of areas, from working with writers to improve the tone of a manuscript to providing warranted evidence in support of copyediting changes. Topics will allow students to encounter a wide range of experiences, from production-oriented aspects of project management to document-based forms of electronic editing. Students will undertake simulations of information management, edit print and electronic media from a variety of fields, and complete a case study of their choice.

Prerequisite or Corequisite

PTC 601. Students must have graduate standing and are usually enrolled in the PTC Certificate or the MS in PTC. If you are not in these categories, permission of the instructor is required

Texts

The basic text, handbook, style manual, and reader must be purchased before the first day of class.

Basic Text:

Carolyn D. Rude. Technical Editing. 4th ed. New York: Pearson, 2006. ISBN: 0-321-33082-X

Handbook:

Joseph Gibaldi, ed. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: MLA, 2003. ISBN: 978-0-87352-986-0

Style Manual:

The Chicago Manual of Style OnLine. http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html Students may also purchase the 15th edition if hardcopy is preferred: The Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. ISBN: 0-226-10403-6

Reader:

Virginia Tufte. Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2006. ISBN: 0-9613921-8-5

Assignments and Grading Procedures

Your assignments and their point value of your final grade are described below:

Exercises 1-12: 4 pts each

Assignment 1: 10 pts; Assignment 2: 10 pts; Assignment 3: 12 pts; Assignment 4: 20 pts

Syllabus

This is a sample syllabus. While the basic elements of the course remain consistent across semesters, elements of the course change. The final syllabus will be provided on the WebCT site the first day of class.

Part 1: What's Technical About Technical Editing?

Week 1

Discussion 1: Technical Editing in the 21st Century

Reading: Rude, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 22, 24, and 25; Gibaldi, Chapter 2; Chicago, Chapter 4

Week 2

Discussion 2: Conventional and Innovative Editing Practices

Reading: Rude, Chapters 4, 5, 6, 13, and 14

Exercise 1: The Variables of Contemporary Technical Editing--Providing Warranted Evidence

Part 2: Editing Text

Week 3

Discussion 3: Copyediting, Audience Analysis, and Cohesion

Reading: Rude, Chapters 7, 8, and Chapter 17 ; Tufte, Chapter 13; Chicago, Chapters 2 and 3

Exercise 2: Copyediting, Audience Analysis, and Cohesion

Week 4

Discussion: Spelling, Capitalization, Italics, Names of Persons, Titles, Quotations, and Abbreviations

Reading: Rude, Chapter 9; Gibaldi, Chapter sections 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8, and Chapter 7; Chicago, Chapters 7, 8, and 15

Exercise 3: Editing Spelling, Capitalization, Italics, Names of Persons, Titles, Quotations, and Abbreviations

Week 5

Discussion: Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation

Reading: Rude, Chapters 10 and 11; Gibaldi Chapter section 3.2; Chicago, Chapters 5 and 6

Exercise 4: Editing Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation

Week 6

Discussion: Quantitative Material

Reading: Rude, Chapter 12; Gibaldi, Chapter 3.5, 4.7: Chicago, Chapters 9, 13, and 14

Exercise 5: Editing Quantitative Material

Case Study Assignment 1: Proposing the Editing Domain of the Case Study

Part 3: Preparing Bibliographic Material

Week 7

Discussion: Preparing the List of Works Cited

Reading: Gibaldi, Chapter 5 and Appendix A; Chicago, Chapter 17

Exercise 6: Editing the Works Cited

Week 8

Discussion: Citing Sources in the Text; Indexing

Reading: Gibaldi, Chapter 6 and Appendix B: Chicago, Chapters 16 and 18

Exercise 7: Editing Sources in Text; Indexing

Part 4: Crafting Artful Sentences

Week 9

Discussion: Conjunction and Coordination; Dependent Clauses; Sentence Openers and Inversion

Reading: Rude, Chapters 15 and 16; Tufte, Chapters 6-8

Exercise 8: Revisions with Conjunction and Coordination; Dependent Clauses; Sentence Openers and Inversion

Week 10

Discussion: Short Sentences; Noun Phrases; Verb Phrases; Adjectives and Adverbs; Prepositions

Reading: Tufte, Chapters 1-5

Exercise 9: Revisions with Short Sentences; Noun Phrases; Verb Phrases; Adjectives and Adverbs; Prepositions

Week 11

Discussion: Free Modifiers (Branching Sentences); the Appositive; Interrogation, Imperative, and Exclamatory Sentences; Parallelism

Reading: Tufte, Chapters 9-12, Gibaldi, Chapter 3.7; Chicago, Chapter 11

Exercise 10: Revision with Free Modifiers (Branching Sentences); the Appositive; Interrogation, Imperative, and Exclamatory Sentences; Parallelism

Case Study Assignment 2: Examining the Editing Domain of the Case Study

Part 5: Validating Visual Design

Week 12

Discussion: Document Design

Reading: Rude, Chapters 18, 19, and 23; Gibaldi, Chapter 4.1-4.6; Tufte, Chapter 14; Chicago, Chapter 1

Exercise 11: Proposing Document Design

Week 13

Discussion: Illustrations and Websites

Reading: Rude, Chapters 20 and 21; Chicago, Chapter 12

Exercise 12: Editing Illustrations and Websites

Case Study Assignment 3: Drafting the Case Study

Part 6: Putting It All Together

Weeks 14-15

Discussion: Case Study

Case Study Assignment 4: Finalizing and Submitting the Case Study