3.8 Completion of the Technical Report
3.8.2 Proof-Reading and Text Correction According to ISO 5776
During thefinal proofreading, see Fig.3.29, all remaining errors in the Technical Report should be found. The following error types are nearly always still existing in the Technical Report: wrong wording or wrong vocabulary (if the report is written in a foreign lan- guage), spelling errors, wrong commas, grammar mistakes, bad writing style, repetition of contents, errors in the logical sequence of thoughts, layout errors and miscellaneous errors (readability, bad briefing of the typist).
If you can concentrate well, search all errors in one proofreading cycle. Otherwise group the types of errors, you want to concentrate on, into groups and search the errors in several proofreading cycles. You can find all error types far better, if you do the proof- reading on paper printouts rather than on the screen. On paper, the contours of the letters have more contrast and sharpness. In addition, on a sheet of paper you can look at far
more information in a context, as on a screen and turning the pages back and forth is much easier. This facilitates looking for repetitions of contents a lot. Enter the corrections, which you marked on the paper very soon into the appropriate textfiles!
While entering the corrections and reading the text on the screen, you will oftenfind additional open problems. Try to become used to standardized personal notes and symbols for those things, which you have to check later, before the final printout is made, but which would disturb your workflow too much at the moment. For example, use a search marker like“###”, which is entered into thefile at the desired position, where you want to jump to directly. You can add abbreviations to this search marker like
“###Sp”= spelling/dictionary,“###Lit”= literature citation or check again bibliograph- ical data, “###Un”= meaning is unknown (look-up the details in a textbook or ency- clopedia),“###iS”= introductory or connecting sentence etc.
▸ Note all remaining necessary work steps in your to-do-list immediately, so that you do not forget them.
When proofreading you also check the layout. Figures and tables may not be split apart as long as theyfit on one page. Thefigure subheadings and table headings must appear on the same page as thefigure or table. If paragraphs must be split by a page break, no single line should remain on the old or flow to the new page. In addition, a document part heading should not be split from thefirst paragraph of the appertaining section.
Since the page numbers may change until you entered the very last change, the page numbers are the last thing you enter into the manually created table of contents and the automatically created table of contents must be updated again. This is also true for the list offigures, list of tables etc. Therefore, the master copies of the table of contents and the other lists are the last master copies that you print out. Before you start copying your Technical Report you should check again all cross-references to other document parts and compare all page numbers of the document part headings in all previously printed master copy pages with the entries in the table of contents.
Accept and analyse the task
Check or create the title
Design a 4-point- structure
Design a 10-point- structure
Create text, figures, tables
Develop detailed structure Search, Read, Cite literature
Proofread and enter correc- tions
Print ori- ginals or PDF/end check
Copy, bind and distribute report
Fig. 3.29 Network plan for the creation of Technical Reports: proofreading
Corrections should always be entered in red, e.g. with a thin felt pen or ball pen. This is important, because you can then see your own corrections far better during entering them into your computerfiles as compared with corrections marked with pencil or blue or black ball pen. If you have entered a correction, you should move a ruler down across the page until you reach the next correction symbol. You can as well tick or cross out the correction symbols with a pen or pencil having a different color.
Correction symbols are especially important, if the author of the Technical Report enters the corrections on the proof-printout and someone else enters them into the com- puterfiles. You canfind the standardized correction symbols in ISO 5776. On the internet various people have published their correction symbols. We recommend a meaningful selection of correction symbols with some simplifications, Fig. 3.30.
▸ The symbol to insert a blank line “>” can be completed with “iS>” for an introductory/connecting sentence, with“Pb>”for a page break, with“+>”for more vertical space and with“−>”for less vertical space.
You can learn and immediately use this simplified system of correction symbols by simply reading the checklist above, since all symbols are logic in themselves and can be deducted again easily. These correction symbols have proven its value in practice very well.
Beside these correction symbols, you can use correction markings, which are to be worked on later. During the phase“proofreading and correcting”you will probably work on the“###”markings in the text with appropriate corrections and delete the markings as well as rework the text style. However, even when you enter the corrections, you may still decide to leave some items unsolved, e.g. because special textbooks or encyclopediae can only be consulted during the next visit to the library. You should structure this phase of inserting the corrections as follows:
– In the printout at the left margin mark all lines containing the “###Sp”, “###Lit”,
“###Un”und “###iS”with a vertical line with a well visible (colored) pencil or text marker. In addition, write appropriate notes what to do into the margin, e.g. in which book you want to read again the marked issue. With these well visible (colored) vertical lines, you can find these editing notes quickly in the end phase, which is characterized by time pressure.
– Cross out all vertical lines in the left margin, as soon as you have entered the correction into yourfile, if possible with a pencil in a different color like green.
– Still necessary work steps should be ordered by category, copied into afile as to-do-list ordered by category and printed out, resolved items in the list should be crossed out, this should be updated in yourfile etc.
– Work on the last items of your to-do-list or speak with your customer or supervisor to make sure, that the last changes are not necessary any more.
If possible, let other persons also read your Technical Report. After several weeks or after frequent reading of your own texts you will become“routine-blinded”against your
own formulations. The following persons are candidates for proofreading: father/mother, partner, boyfriend/girlfriend, fellow students, supervisor, professor, customer etc. They should have at least one of the two following qualifications:
– expert for the project/specialist and
– expert for spelling or foreign languages/generalist.
Eventually, a different person should do the proofreading for the other area.
Fig. 3.30 Simplified system of correction symbols according to ISO 5776
▸ If you have entered the corrections, tidy up the old pages. Too many text versions tend to get mixed up. You should only keep the latest version with corrections and throw it away right after you have created thefinal printout.
If you have entered the last correction, no open correction markings are left and when you are about to do the final printout, check the line break again on the screen! It often happens, that due to text changes hyphens appear in the middle of the text or soft hyphens are forgotten, and the left and right justification creates undesired gaps between the words.
Define whether your word processor shall do automatic or semi-automatic hyphenation (hyphenation proposals). Automatic hyphenation sometimes leads to mistakes.
Then you should use the page preview with a zoom factor, so that you can see the whole page to check again the page break and layout. Figures and tables and their appertaining headings may not be cut at wrong places by the page breaks. The distances above and below formulas, examples,figure subheadings, table headings etc. should be consistent. The headings should be near the object they refer to (e.g. table, figure). The rest of the text has a considerably larger distance. If you have optimized the line and page break now, the text is ready for the final printout.