This course will help you reach your next level of skill development. It will help you acquire essential editing and proofreading skills for every form of writing. You will learn how to edit and proofread the work of others as well as your own.

You will gain confidence as an editor and proofreader. You will also learn the 'Dos' and 'Don’ts' of self-editing and editing for others. You will discover the best way to proofread “live copy” from “dead copy.” The Gregg Reference Manual is used as our standard.

NOTE: This course supports the principles of Plain Talk.

Performance Objectives: Upon completion of this course you should be able to:

• Edit your writing to meet the needs of the reader.
• Edit for descending order.
• Edit documents to eliminate wordiness, false starts, padding, stacked nouns, passive voice, adverb intensifiers, prepositional phrases, imprecise language, jargon, foreign terms, redundancies, and other related problems.
• Edit to keep tone acceptable.
• Proofread for major and minor grammatical errors to include use of pronouns, subject-verb agreement, phrases, references, and negatives.
• Edit and proofread for proper word choices and punctuation usage.
• Proofread for spelling problems beyond the spell checker.
• Use several editorial checklists.
• Proofread for software language errors and errors outside of the text.
• Edit to keep within a readability measurement for the average customer.

Competencies covered in this class: Written Communication

Intended Audience: Public sector executive and administrative assistants, office staff, and other professionals who rewrite, edit, or proofread a variety of written documents.