RE: how long does "fixing" a document take

[<Karen -dot- Murri -at- wellsfargo -dot- com>]

I had a project a couple of years ago that involved editing and
formatting a number of existing standards documents. I kept a
spreadsheet that tracked how much time I spend on each document and how
many pages were in the original (typical single-spaced dense text). At
the end, I averaged about 1/2 hour per page. Some documents took much
less, some took much more. The winner was a doc that I spent about 2.5
hours per page. A few took only 10 minutes per page (these were usually
mostly re-formatting and not much editing).

It does sound more like you're writing a manual from scratch using SME
notes, though, so I'm not so sure my estimates apply.

-Karen

(My opinion, not my employer's.)

-----Original Message-----
On 6/11/07, Carrie Baker <carriebak -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
> I am sure that this is a question where the answer is "it depends", 
> but I would like to get a sort of estimate to see if I am in the 
> correct direction.
> A programmer for whom English is not their mother tongue, wrote an 
> internal document explaining to sales staff how to demonstrate a 
> complex application. (it is not a user guide, but more in the 
> application note direction).
> The document is around 31 pages long and covers over 20 screens some 
> of which are divided into additional panes etc.
> I was asked to edit this.
> Apart from editing, I am running the data he used, with the 
> application to make sure no steps are missed out.
>
> All in all, I am fixing the English, adding formatting, (headings, 
> numbers whatever is required), and making sure the whole thing makes 
> sense and works.
>
> This seems to be taking me a long time. How long do you think 
> something like this should take??
> --
> Carrie Baker
> carriebak -at- gmail -dot- com
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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