Janet Underwood

 

How Many Times Should You Revise Your Technical Documents?

There isn’t a single answer to this question. Much depends upon what kind of document you’re writing. For example, if you’re writing an article about research you’ve done and that article will be published in a journal for your peers, you’ll likely pore over it many times before you release it for publication. If you’re writing a requirements document, you’ll probably have it reviewed by others and revise it many, many times before everyone is satisfied that it is complete.

The number of times that you need to revise your document also depends on the project. If you’re writing a user manual for a software program that’s in development, if the programmers discover that some of their coding doesn’t work correctly, you may have to revise parts of your manual.

In addition, many technical documents are constantly being updated and revised as the applications they describe are being modified and updated. The process of revising doesn’t stop until the application is discontinued.

When writing a new technical document, I follow a fairly standard process of editing, proofreading, and revising. First, I let my computer catch as much as possible by running a spell check and grammar check.

Next, I read the document to make sure that I’ve included everything that needs to be included and the content flows smoothly.

After that, I begin my intensive proofreading. I make several passes when proofreading. Each time I go through the document, I’m looking for something specific. For example, in one pass, I look for spelling errors. In another pass, I look for punctuation problems. In yet another pass, I check to be sure that I’m using terms as outlined in the style guide that I’m using.

In each of these passes, I may see other errors and change them. My primary focus, however, is whatever I’ve determined I’ll be looking for on that pass.

Throughout all of this, I’m using my computer’s spell checker and grammar checker just to make sure I’m not introducing new errors into my text.

This method of editing and proofreading is called top-down editing, which means that you start with the broadest concepts and work your way down to the details. It’s considered more efficient than bottom-up editing, which is where you would work on perfecting each sentence before making sure that the content includes everything you want it to include and flows nicely. Bottom-up editing is less efficient because you spend a lot of time on the details that might be changed when you are editing the overall flow of the document.

My style of editing also incorporates elements of an editing system that was developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab many years ago. This system is called Levels of Edit. This system outlines precisely what will be edited at different levels of editing and is credited with saving JPL and companies that adopted it a lot of money. Here’s a link to a document that talks about this in more depth: http://www.technical-expressions.com/learn2edit/levels-of-edit/levels_of_edit.pdf

I hope this helps!