This editing workshop combines the most important elements of comprehensive editing (also known as substantive, developmental and/or structural editing) with an abbreviated version of our copyediting workshop, allowing participants to gain a high-level understanding of the editing process from beginning to end.

The first half of this session focuses on assessing and improving documents at the highest level, including issues of organization, structure, argument, scope, audience, genre and style. In the second half, participants will gain techniques for copyediting for clarity, consistency, and correctness, as well as readability and accessibility. Rooted in rhetorical principles that apply across industries, this workshop teaches communicators to think critically about their work and the writing of their colleagues.

Outcomes

In this workshop, participants will learn to:

• Understand the differences and key tasks involved in the three distinct phases of comprehensive editing, copyediting, and proofreading

• Approach new texts (their own or the writing of others) with an eye toward, first, rhetorical, high-level concerns before shifting to sentence-level clarity and effectiveness

• Identify and assess the structure, organization and argument of a document

• Better implement effective editing processes that allow not just for better mechanics, but also more readable, clear and effective texts overall

• Identify common errors and issues in grammar, punctuation and clarity at the sentence level

• Consider the process of providing feedback to other workplace writers as an opportunity to teach, rather than simply “correct” — and learn how to do so

• Evaluate and make suggestions for better editing practices across their team and organization

Standard workshops are typically limited to 12 participants to ensure active engagement and individual feedback. If you have a larger group, please get in touch to talk about your options.