S E M I N A R

Editing Single-Source Documents

Speaker: Kurt Ament, infotektur

Single sourcing is collaborative writing. Writers work together as a team to develop chunks of content, then assemble those chunks into different documents and formats. To ensure that assembled documents speak with one voice, writers need consensual writing guidelines, based on their collective experience.

The best way to collect, document, and enforce consensual writing guidelines is to embed editors in writing teams. As the first users of assembled documents, editors can easily spot usability problems and formally propose solutions to the team. Solutions approved by the team are compiled as guidelines into a style guide. Editors then use the style guide as a basis for future edits.

By following this proactive and recursive editing process, writing teams can increase the usability of their documents exponentially.

What you learn

In this seminar, your learn how to do the following:

• Diagnose usability problems in document edits.
• Propose usability guidelines in edit comment sheets.
• Vet guidelines in one-on-one meetings between writers and editors.
• Present vetted proposals to your entire writing team for approval.
• Compile approved guidelines into a project style guide.
• Synchronize project and corporate guidelines.
• Enforce approved guidelines in edits.
• Maintain "evergreen" guidelines.

When and where

This web-based seminar was presented to dozens of writers, editors, and documentation managers in virtual meetings at Hewlett-Packard.