Level Three: Proof Everything—Be Methodical
There are two kinds of third-level projects: communications for which
you are responsible for writing to someone else’s specifications with little
or no direction, and communications for which the consequences of
errors are severe.
“My boss sends me E-mails with—at best—a rough draft of a message,”
explains Heidi, executive assistant to a consumer products company’s
senior vice president. “The projects range from an E-mail to all
vice presidents about some policy change to a five-page proposal to
another corporation’s president presenting a global cobranding initiative.
“Sometimes he’ll jot down a sentence or two, sometimes he’ll write
theoretically about what he wants to accomplish, and sometimes he’ll
do both at the same time. It’s my job to take whatever he gives me and
produce a finished document ready for his signature. We joke that my
responsibility is to ‘proof’ his work. But we both know that this is way
beyond traditional proofreading. It’s really writing, editing, and proofing.”
Heidi’s approach to creating finished documents is an example of
the third level of proofing. Her projects have the following attributes:
• external, and potentially part of the public record
• short to long
• usually complex
• usually formal
• medium to high risk, with significant consequences associated
with errors or inaccuracies
Ray, a physical therapist, says that he has to write a monthly article
of about five hundred words for his organization’s newsletter. “Five hundred
words is a lot. That’s a long article compared to the rest of the
newsletter. Having that amount of space allows me to go into a fair
amount of detail. It’s imperative that my articles be clear and accurate.
Our newsletter targets people who are recovering from sports injuries.
The readers are usually anxious and may not know a lot about the subject
matter. Clarity is my most important goal. However, because the
newsletters are distributed to the community through doctors’ offices, the
public library, schools, and the recreation department, they are public
documents. My boss once told me that I should always write about med-
Level Three: Proof Everything—Be Methodical
There are two kinds of third-level projects: communications for which
you are responsible for writing to someone else’s specifications with little
or no direction, and communications for which the consequences of
errors are severe.
“My boss sends me E-mails with—at best—a rough draft of a message,”
explains Heidi, executive assistant to a consumer products company’s
senior vice president. “The projects range from an E-mail to all
vice presidents about some policy change to a five-page proposal to
another corporation’s president presenting a global cobranding initiative.
“Sometimes he’ll jot down a sentence or two, sometimes he’ll write
theoretically about what he wants to accomplish, and sometimes he’ll
do both at the same time. It’s my job to take whatever he gives me and
produce a finished document ready for his signature. We joke that my
responsibility is to ‘proof’ his work. But we both know that this is way
beyond traditional proofreading. It’s really writing, editing, and proofing.”
Heidi’s approach to creating finished documents is an example of
the third level of proofing. Her projects have the following attributes:
• external, and potentially part of the public record
• short to long
• usually complex
• usually formal
• medium to high risk, with significant consequences associated
with errors or inaccuracies
Ray, a physical therapist, says that he has to write a monthly article
of about five hundred words for his organization’s newsletter. “Five hundred
words is a lot. That’s a long article compared to the rest of the
newsletter. Having that amount of space allows me to go into a fair
amount of detail. It’s imperative that my articles be clear and accurate.
Our newsletter targets people who are recovering from sports injuries.
The readers are usually anxious and may not know a lot about the subject
matter. Clarity is my most important goal. However, because the
newsletters are distributed to the community through doctors’ offices, the
public library, schools, and the recreation department, they are public
documents. My boss once told me that I should always write about med-
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