I was repeatedly surprised and disappointed by the number of technical and communication issues that my team encountered during the comprehensive edit project. My team members and I frequently encountered difficulties finding or accessing files in the group Microsoft SharePoint drive.
Technical and Communication Issues
At the beginning of our work on the project, I did not pay enough attention to giving files brief, descriptive names that can be understood on devices with small screens. As a result, my teammates had issues identifying files when their devices did not display the full file names.
We resolved most of the issues we had finding files by renaming files to feature distinguishing information earlier. We still had some difficulty communicating about file names because we each used different nicknames for the files we were working on, but not nearly as much.
I think this communication issue primarily resulted from technological limitations because changing file names to include identifiable information early enough to be displayed on all devices mostly resolved the issue.
Later, as we were formatting and proofreading our copyedited version of our manuscript, we encountered further technical difficulties. The Word doc file we were working on stopped functioning properly, leaving us unable to edit the document. This technical issue became especially disappointing and frustrating when I discovered that SharePoint’s feature to allow users to revert documents to a past version did not work on this document for an unspecified reason. I was delighted and surprised when I discovered that, although I could not revert the document to a past version, I could download a past version to upload as our new working version.
Instructional Materials
I used many of the ideas that I learned from Dr. Kim’s Copyediting and Style Guides instructional material, Word Tutorial, and AI Tool Tutorial on the comprehensive edit project.
Before watching Dr. Kim’s video lecture about style sheets, I was unfamiliar with style sheets. As I wrote the style sheet for the comprehensive edit project, I frequently consulted the video lecture. This helped me keep the purpose and key components of a style sheet in mind as I wrote contributed.
I used the techniques and skills that I learned from Dr. Kim’s Word Tutorial and AI Tool Tutorial continuously in the comprehensive edit. Word features, including Styles, Track Changes, Macros, and Find and Replace, significantly increased the speed of my edits. ProWritingAid’s readability report allowed me to confirm that my edits were improving the document.
Estimate of Scope
My group’s estimate of scope in the brief proposal feels accurate, although I did not track my hours worked. Our estimates of the levels of structural edit and copyedit required were correct. I think that my group probably worked more hours than we proposed, but we spent that extra time on things not accounted for in the proposal.
While my group’s estimate of scope of edit was accurate in the brief proposal, I underestimated the time I needed to spend communicating with my teammates about the project and working on the style sheet.
AI Tool Use
My approach to the comprehensive edit was significantly influenced by the fact that I used an AI tool. After confirming the level of edit necessary, I relied heavily on ProWritingAid to identify grammar and spelling errors and readability issues.
Without an AI editing tool, I would have had to spend much longer proofreading to find obvious spelling and grammar errors. These errors are easy to spot and correct if you are looking at the right part of the text, but if you do not know what part of the text they are in, you need to read the entire text carefully multiple times just to find errors.
ProWritingAid’s grammar and spelling tools allowed me to focus my attention on correcting errors rather than reading copious amounts of text to spot them. Unlike Microsoft Word’s built in spelling and grammar checker, I felt confident relying on ProWritingAid to identify all outright incorrect grammar and spelling errors. Thanks to this, I could spend more time making sure that the document aligns with our style sheet.
Conclusions
To achieve my career goals, I must demonstrate my credibility as an employee and an editor. Completing a large team editing project with minimal oversight was significant to my career goals because it developed and demonstrated my ability to plan, cooperate, and perform editing duties on a realistic project.
As a technical communicator, it is necessary to have the ability to work effectively with colleagues to determine what work is necessary, allocate that work, and then complete it. This project gave me an opportunity to enact and practice these vital skills.
The ability to work as a part of a self-directed team to complete a project was highly meaningful to my career goals.