Instr:                  Rachel Spilka
Office:                CRT 594,   229-4500
e-mail:                apilka@uwm.edu
Office hours:    by appointment

Course Information:                   T 5:30-8:10   CRT 127
 

Course Description

This seminar will cover advanced strategies for planning and conducting effective edits of a wide variety of public and workplace discourse, with most attention paid to edits of “technical” and discipline specific documents such as those found in medical, health, environmental, government, engineering, science, and computer contexts.  Considerable attention will be devoted to the following issues and processes:

· Author/editor relationship and negotiations
· Roles of social interactions throughout the editing process
· Approaches to pre-edit task, rhetorical, and audience analyses
· Hands-on practice with planning and managing both individual and collaborative editing tasks
· Hands-on practice conducting both micro- and macro-level edits on both texts and graphics within strict time deadlines
· Approaches to evaluating edits
· Approaches to post-edit work on documentation

This course is ideal for graduate students wishing to specialize in professional writing and editing and for practitioners interested in developing advanced skill in editing for job or career advancement.  No prior experience with editing is assumed, and even students with the most basic beginning skill in editing can develop advanced skill by the end of the semester.