Re: Review Process for documents in HTML? (Take II)

[quills -at- airmail -dot- net]

Totally true, Geoff. The problem is always in ensuring that you include 
the comments in the source document. Since the PDF will allow you to 
place a check mark to help you note when a comment is included, there is 
an available tool for the process. Because this feature allows you to 
show by status and checkmark, as well as by person who made the comment, 
you can control the entry of the comments.

I agree that an editor may well be better positioned to work from a 
source document, the SME is more likely, from my experience, to only be 
interested in the technical details.

I used the email model, and found it to be satisfactory, though we were 
more interested in using the central repository for all SMEs to use the 
same one, and be able to see their associates' comments.

So I think we are pretty close to how we would like to have the workflow.

Scott

Geoff Hart wrote:
> Scott notes: <<I have only anecdotal evidence...>>
>
> Which is every bit as good as my anecdotal evidence... possibly 
> better. Just saying... <g>
>
> <<... but I would argue that with the Show Comments feature you can 
> track the comments/edits/ whatever entered by someone and check them 
> off if action is completed, place a status on them such as Review: 
> None, Accepted, Rejected, Cancelled, Completed. You can use the same 
> PDF to circulate through all SME's by email, or from a central 
> location, or individual one, and combine their comments into a central 
> copy of the PDF.>>
>
> That would certainly work, but it still requires care when responding 
> to each comment, and someone must remember to check at the end of the 
> process that all comments have been satisfactorily responded to. It 
> can be done, but whoever does this must remember to check carefully; 
> the temptation to simply assume that all has been done is natural, 
> particularly under deadline pressure. Ideally, your editor can do 
> this, since we editors tend to be... umm... obsessive about these 
> things. If you're doing peer reviews only, pick the most obsessive 
> person to do this work. It really does make a difference.
>
> I should also qualify my previous comment about the usefulness of PDF 
> for reviewing documents: I was speaking from the editor's perspective, 
> which I may not have made sufficiently clear. If SMEs are focusing 
> primarily on technical details, and not fiddling with the wording, 
> then PDFs can work very well. Where PDFs work far less well is for 
> significant amounts of copyediting and substantive editing; then, the 
> process becomes significantly more cumbersome (less efficient and 
> productive) than using a word processor. But you could solve that 
> problem by giving your editor(s) access to a copy of Frame so you can 
> use revision tracking, macros, search and replace, etc. to make 
> editing more efficient.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Geoff Hart (www.geoff-hart.com)
> ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Effective Onscreen Editing:
> http://www.geoff-hart.com/books/eoe/onscreen-book.htm
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>

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