Why Your Training Needs This Journey
Why does it take time to develop quality instructional content? Can’t professional writers just crank out the words? Yes, they can. However, the process entails more than just filling a blank page with words. Words need editing, and it may surprise you to learn that editing is a lot more than a red pen dotting i’s and crossing t’s!
Editors play a critical role in ensuring instructional materials effectively and efficiently meet their objectives. Correcting grammar and punctuation is just one piece of a much larger editorial process continuum. A journey through macro-editing and micro-editing forms the backbone of the process for creating high quality training materials (like those developed by Versado).
Macro-editing (also referred to as substantive, developmental, or instructional editing) often entails large-scale changes—rearranging and rewriting content and clarifying content with writers. When editing a document, the macro-editor looks at many things, including whether the document:
- Meets the audience’s needs
- Tells a coherent “story”
- Is written clearly and flows logically
- Is accurate
- Is visually accessible to the reader (eg, includes appropriate tables, figures, and callouts and is not just a big block of words)
Micro-editing (most commonly referred to as copyediting or proofreading) is typically performed later in the content development process but can sometimes extend into the macro-editing end of the continuum, depending on timing and the extent of changes. The micro-editor is primarily focused on whether the document:
- Reads well (no awkward wording or missing words)
- Is consistently formatted (eg, text size, color, and font; titling, captioning, and numbering; overall layout)
- Is referenced appropriately and in the correct style
- Follows style guide guidelines (terminology preferences, capitalization, trademark use, consistency among all project components, etc.)
- Uses correct grammar and punctuation
The tasks of writing, macro-editing, and micro-editing are numerous and often overlap. It takes time for materials to progress through the editorial process, but, at the end of the journey, the quality of the final product speaks for itself. You’ll be glad your training traversed this editorial continuum.
