Understand the purpose of the content you are editing
Tomorrow, my technical editing students at the University of North Texas begin discussing editorial decision-making. The rhetorical context within which content is created is critical to good editorial decisions.
Although the video below was created for professionals who write, I’m using it to teach editors how to think about purpose in nonfiction content.
The video supplements what my co-authors and I put into Chapter 1 of Revising Professional Writing, 4th edition.
Related Readings
There are a handful of posts here at Pros Write that deal with purpose in workplace documents. Just search for “purpose” or “planning” in the field near the top of this page. If you want to see the research supporting my guidance, check out the following sources.
Campbell (2015). Thinking and interacting like a leader: The TILL system for leadership communication. Chicago: Parlay Press.
Quinn et al. (1991). A competing values framework for analyzing presentational communication in management contexts. Journal of Business Communication, 28, pp. 213–232.
