Editing and Proofreading

Acquire essential editing and proofreading skills for every form of writing.

Reach your next level of skill development. Understand the difference between editing and proofreading, and when you should apply each skill.

Stop slogging through patchworks of outdated academic experiences and thick style manuals to make every editing call.

Course Duration: 2 Days |14 hours
Participants: Up to 28
Audience: Executive and administrative assistants, office staff, and other professionals who revise or edit a variety of written documents.

Course Scope

Editing focuses on content, design, and information placement. We consider the message, and we edit to achieve five key outcomes. We discern what to leave in and what to take out.

Proofreading focuses on grammar and mechanics. This includes punctuation. We plain talked the style guides for you, to clarify and streamline the grammar rules.

You’ll learn logic processes rather than memorize rules, so you can make the right grammar choice in every context.

Have you ever wanted to ask an expert how to apply specific rules to your own work? Here’s your chance!

We use your agency style guides and your communication standards, when available. We use the Gregg Reference Manual as our baseline.

Performance Objectives

You’ll use lecture, hands-on activity, discussion, and reflection to gain eight key skills.

  • Edit to meet the needs of the reader. You’ll learn Plain Talk principles and UX principles to help you achieve this.
  • Edit to achieve descending order.
  • Edit to cut wordiness, false starts, padding, stacked nouns, passive voice, adverb intensifiers, prepositional phrases, imprecise language, jargon, foreign terms, redundancies, and other related mistakes.
  • Edit to achieve the right tone for your purpose.
  • Proofread to correct all grammar errors. Correctly use pronouns, ensure subject-verb agreement, choose the right word, check phrases, and punctuate properly.
  • Proofread for spelling problems that software won’t catch.
  • Use several editorial checklists.
  • Proofread for software induced errors and errors outside of the text.
  • Edit to draft readable, usable, and accessible messages.

Competencies covered in this class: Written Communication

Resources

Write Words provides a computer lab for live revision courses within 50 miles of Olympia, WA. Laptops provided for regional agencies beyond 50 miles when possible, by request. We also provide workbooks and all materials needed.

Host agencies provide a projection system that we can use to present from a laptop. We can use anything you have: a Smartboard, smart TV, or projector system with Display Port, HDMI, wireless, or VGA connection.

“Carriann makes learning scary things so easy and fun. I leave feeling very confident. Between this course and prior courses with Carriann, I am confident in my abilities.”
A. H., Washington State Department of Labor and Industries

Return to Course Catalog