Editing

During my master's degree, I completed several projects related to editing. During my studies, I refined my grammatical skills, learned to edit for content and clarity, as well as how to edit documents using paper, Track Changes in Microsoft Word, and in Google Docs. I also learned to create documents that help facilitate the editorial process such as style guides. Full documents can be seen by clicking on the images or the link within the text.

St. Theresa Catholic School Style Guide

Sarah Massey and I created this style guide in Technical Style and Editing. We made for St. Theresa Catholic School (STS) in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Manual users include new and current teachers and administrative staff, as well as volunteers. By following the guidelines agreed upon by new STS principal Kristy Dunn, this style manual will allow the staff of STS to be consistent in the look and presentation of their external and internal documents.

Sarah and I contributed equally to the writing on this project, and I did the document design and formatting with her input as needed. I wanted the document to have a look that felt like STS, drawing in the text and colors from the school’s logo. I also worked to give it adequate white space to make the document readable. We kept the information succinct and informative, enough to inform but not so much as to overwhelm. We made sure that the headings and subheadings were obvious and helped to break up the information being presented.

This document shows my ability to create a sizable document out of information and client input, as well as to do the research needed to make a reliable document. It also shows my ability to create a visually appealing and usable document that is cohesive to the image of the organization.

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Graduate School Catalog 2016-2017

The Graduate School Catalog for UA Little Rock is used by students, faculty, staff, and prospective students of the university. In PDF form, this document is almost 600 pages. I worked as the sole editor for this document, responsible for updating information as it was approved through councils, for editing information as it was requested during the annual review, ensuring that information that had to go through official channels had been approved to be changed, and then making sure everything was consistent throughout the document. This document is the official word on what the requirements are for admission into a program and what the requirements are for the achievement of a degree.

This document taught me skills in maintaining and updating existing documents, working on documents over a long period of time, as well as the special skills required for a document of this length, such as maintaining a log of what edits had been done and acquiring information as to what changes needed to be made. It also taught me skills in working within a defined framework, as the CSS on this file is locked by IT Services. As a result, I was able to do relatively little as far as font changes, heading and subheading styles, and overall formatting. Most of the changes that could be made were done via HTML changes in each individual page, working within the settings established by IT Services.