Editing Process for Whitesheets and Manuals with Final Results

This project was an extensive edit that spanned dozens of pages. Although I did not produce any new content, I reformatted and reorganized existing content to align with brand style guides and internal requirements for customer-facing documents. This process is often required when documentation becomes unmaintained or crosses between departments. This project demonstrated my ability to analyze existing materials against current documentation standards and perform comprehensive edits to ensure consistency between and within documents containing technical materials.

To determine the scope of this project, I first compared the existing documents to the available style guides. I took notes on where the existing materials deviated from the style guides but did not immediately set off into applying corrections. In the second phase of assessment, I identified the areas where comprehension was damaged due to poor writing style. In the last phase of assessment, I looked at areas where formatting and visual presentation had a negative impact on the audience. Corrections were applied without as structured of an approach which allowed for some flexibility in the revision process.

I leveraged tools within Microsoft Word to create consistency by defining styles. Since this project, I have learned a lot more about InDesign and Illustrator which would be my tools of choice were I to reattempt this project or take on another similar challenge. In future iterations of this work, I would also document my editing process more thoroughly. Recording how and why decisions were made is often important to the client and provides the opportunity to give rapid feedback and justification when questioned.