Revisions
The Tracking Changes Help section at the end of this email is for those of you who might benefit from a little extra guidance using Word for revisions.
Review Your Draft’s Content
We hope we’ve nailed your draft(s) the first time around, but it really is a draft, so please proof for accuracy, tone, content, format, and the overall feel…for everything, basically. Please make sure the language conveys exactly what you want it to.
We invite you to approach your review by looking first at overall structure and theme, then if we included the elements you hope for, then for accuracy and tone on a line by line level, then for spelling and number accuracy. Macro to micro.
We might also use your draft to ask for further details from you. We’ll often include yellow highlighted areas (or comments) as prompts for additional statistics and information or to determine whether a statement rings true to you. Be sure to answer our questions in the comments area and highlighted sections.
Please respond within 1 week.
We truly want to get your docs just right. We’ll best do that if we keep the momentum going. Delays during the revision process interrupt that workflow – and our ability to remember all the details we’ve worked so hard to craft – so we ask you to get back to us with your feedback as soon as possible.
In order to keep your project in our workflow, we ask you to respond to our draft with revisions, questions, clarifications, and additional details within a week of receiving the drafts. And hey, it’s okay with us if you get it back to us even sooner!
Review again if you need to – Two revisions are included with every document.
We’ll check your revision and make edits based on your feedback within 24 hours. Then we’ll send you round two!
As stipulated in our initial agreement, you’ll have two rounds of revisions to make sure we’ve got the drafts just right, in terms of both content and typographical accuracy. Simply look over your round two documents, let us know if you’ve got further questions or changes, and send ’em back.
The revision process is the same for both rounds, although the second might go even more quickly.
Once we’ve revised per your guidance, and you’ve let us know we got it right, we’ll create final docs that are clean of any tracked changes, comments, and formatting glitches. Then, you’ll be ready to rock and roll!
If we don’t hear back from you within a week, we will assume the drafts are approved. This means that we’ll finalize your drafts as they are or, if we’re working on your LinkedIn Profile, you’ll need to complete the project yourself, including entering the new copy into LinkedIn.
Revisions Process
To sum it up, download your doc and select Track Changes, answer questions and make changes as needed, then upload your revisions, and let us know. Easy peasy!
Here’s the step-by-step revision process:
1. As mentioned in Email #4: The Writing Process, we’ll upload the official draft into the file sharing app, where you’ll be able to preview and download it. Your designated writer will email you to let you know it’s there.
2. Download it from Submittable, so that you can see it with its designed layout.
3. Before you make any changes: Please make sure Track Changes is ON to record each change you make.
4. In the areas we’ve highlighted yellow, either fill in the blanks or use the New Comment tool to make a note on the side.
5. In addition to answering our questions and yellow highlighted areas, please review your draft in detail. You might have changes, questions, or additional feedback for us. We want the revision process to be easy for you, so you’ve got several options:
- Type right into the document (with the Track Changes tool activated, please)
- Add comments (using the New Comment tool)
- Email your designated writer
Tracking Changes Help
1. Before you make any changes: Please select the Review tab in Microsoft Word, then select the Track Changes button within the Review tab to record each change you make.
2. Select New Comment to respond and answer questions in the document.
3. To the right of the Track Changes button in the top menu ribbon is a dropdown menu with options to view Show Markup or No Markup. If the track changes are distracting, once you’ve answered all of our comments and questions, you can select No Markup to do your work without seeing every change you make, while still recording the rest of your revisions for us to track later.
Or, you can toggle between Final Showing Markup or Final in order to see what the clean document will look like versus the one with tracked changes.
Your docs will look like this when Final: Show Markup is selected.
