Like It or Hate It, but Do Not Ignore It…

It is said, “It can be a peer, rather than a customer, find a defect.”

 

This one-liner statement intensively endorses that peer reviewing is an obligatory process in the life cycle of documentation. Therefore, it is recommended to have regular and an effective peer review process in place that is recognized as a powerful system to improve upon certain technical aspects or sentence-level issues in the documentation.

 

To achieve a good end result, make the peer reviewing process a priority and a habit. It is decisive to understand that this process is an important step to be completed before a document is published or project is complete. Peer reviews must contain constructive criticism and the goal is to improve the team’s documentation or project-specific metrics and not to deride someone’s writing or performance.

 

Preferably, a qualified professional or a member of the team who is principally accountable for the project must perform the peer review. The work on the document must be peer reviewed from a professional standpoint and view point of the reader/user.

 

Follow the points given here in the peer review process:

 

• Be candid and unbiased, yet polite while offering criticism. Offer criticism with aplomb in your comments; after all quality matters here. Do not make personal attacks anywhere in the comments. This can only cause differences among the participants in the review process and it does not indicate authors/writers clearly as to how to improvise their writing.
• As you point out the weaknesses or errors in a piece of writing, it is appreciative if you can also indicate the positives. Bring up facts to the writers’ notice as to why something is particularly correct or why not.
• Substantiate your suggestions with a rationale and propose the writer the right direction as to how they might improve the work for future releases.
• Ask questions so that the writers have to clarify their points or find ways to improve or rectify the information or sentence structure.  
• Always understand that time is a constraint (time taken for your review and for the writers’ revision). So, focus on the most important area where the document could be improved.
• Finally, provide a memo (or a reviewer’s report) that summarizes the findings and include a note on scope for improvement.

The responsibility of the peer reviewer does not end here unless the reviewer receives a response from the writer. Therefore, it is beneficial if writers too summarize their responses to reviewers so that it facilitates a 360-degree feedback that brings the review process to a closure. To realize this:

• Writers, after receiving the feedback in the form of comments and/or recommendations, should respond to the reviewer by acknowledging the changes made or actions taken against each comment.
• If there are reasons for not following certain recommendation or changes, let the peer reviewers know the reason so that that they can avoid commenting on certain style or known issues in future.

 To summarize, it is important to perceive the peer reviewing process more in terms of collaboration or teamwork and perhaps mentoring thereby making helpful suggestions for improving the documentation.

Consistency: Editors’ winning tip

Editing is all about four C’s.

CLEAN – Text is free of errors.
CONCISE – No redundancy in the text.
CORRECT – Technical information and assertions are verified.
CONSISTENCY – Text is uniformily edited.

From an editor’s standpoint, the first three C’s can be managed by using spell-check tools, grammar rules, interaction with writers/SMEs/engineers. However, the skill to edit a document with a methodical CONSISTENCY is easier said than done.

One of the important tasks in editorial involves meticulous capture of inconsistencies. That is where we say “Eye to detail” is crucial. For a certain term or a word usage, where more than one correct option exists, an eye to detail becomes very much indispensable. For example, 100 percent, 100%, and hundred percent all mean the same thing. No matter which way you write it, the readers will understand. But the credibility is recognized when the editor monitors or catches inconsistencies with an eagle’s eye. In such situations, editors must ensure that dealing with language around “percentages” is consistent throughout, but also that it matches the customer-specific writing standards.

How consistency can be achieved?

Remain focused in your task. Staying focused is a challenge. To achieve the objective, clear all unnecessary distractions. Especially while you are editing a large document, set a target to complete small chunks of text within stipulated time. Regulate the breakdown of task for an hour’s effort. Then, concentrate on the document with the customer requirement in mind.

While editing, try to remember your edits that are done earlier in the document. If you feel that you cannot commit to your memory, jot down certain keywords, hyphenated words, capitalized/ unique terms, terminologies in a notepad and maintain them as your word checklist. By using this checklist, standardize the document for consistent word usage by using the Find and Replace option in the editing tool. Judiciously follow writing standards and adhere to customer-specific writing standards to avoid ambiguity.

Consistent edits appear in the documents with practice and experience. Consistency is also achievable through collaborative work environment and enormous amount of persistence. Editors should set a challenge on themselves to get zero defects or negligible review comments from peers. Editors must meet up for a periodical review and exchange their learning/findings regularly. They must regularly interact with other editors, directly or indirectly, as their respective efforts to improvise on consistency.

All the Proof You Need….

Proofreading is the final stage in the editorial process – the final quality control (QC) check-through before publishing the text. However, proofreading must be practiced in our day-to-day written communications as well.

 

A vigilant proofing or proofreading is important to ensure that the write-ups or contents in a document are accurate and consistent. In other words, every book that goes finally to publishing or every e-mail that is being composed to client or the stakeholders of the organization has to be essentially proofread at least once. This re-look is obligatory to pay utmost attention to quality. Proofreading assures that you have not missed any awkward inaccuracies in your writing.

 

Why to proofread?

 

As stated earlier, proofreading is absolutely necessary to maintain quality. To reiterate its importance, here are some technical and principled reasons why one should vouch for proofreading.

 

The fact is, no matter how many times you have read and re-read your writing, there are chances of typos and mistakes because you are too close to the matter or subject when you are writing. This is a bit weird but true. To put it in simpler terms, when you are very familiar with the subject, you get blind spots. So, your eyes fail to read exactly what is on the page and you tend to miss errors. Sometimes, you do not realize that a mistake is made. Typos, grammar slips, and inconsistencies are extremely disconcerting, and they might even challenge the image of writer/editor.

 

Therefore, proofreading is a significant part of documentation process and it is recommended to set aside a considerable amount of time for proofing each time you pen down.

 

How to proofread?

 

There are different methods to perform the proofreading task. Choose the one that best suits you. Here are a few of them that can be considered as guidance:

 

• Read the text slowly.
• Read the text aloud and also silently.
• Read text backwards to focus on the spelling of words.
• Have others read it for a second check.
• Point the text with your finger or mouse pointer to read one word at a time.
• Print it out and read it. (This method applies to e-mails or write-ups with a modest word count.)
• Be careful that your eyes do not jump from one error to the next apparent error, thereby missing some subtle errors in between.
• Double check for small and little words such as or, of, if, it, and is and most importantly the homophones, for example, here/hear are often interchanged.

Note: Proofreading does not involve improving the writing style in any way. So, while proofreading refrain from editing or modifying the writing style.