Copyediting Process and Tools for Lesson Plans

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The topic of what process should be used for copyediting lesson plans and what tools could be used came up during the October 11 Make WordPress Training Meeting. During the SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. discussion, questions arose about how team members should handle copyediting concerns.

Is there a definitive process for new copy editors to follow?
- What basic guidelines should be followed?
How are editing changes handled?
- Make style edits on the fly?
  - RevisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. track changes
- How to handle major edits?
  - Use strikethrough to flag deletions?
  - Use highlighting to flag additions?
  - Create a new document when rewriting?
  - Need review before committing?
    - By original writer or another editor?
What is the difference between copyediting and rewriting?
Does the copy editor need to contact the original writer?
How should comments be relayed between writers and editors?
Can we add a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party to provide built-in features for extensive editing?

The Make WordPress Training Getting Started page indicates the various roles of contributors on the Training Team:

Writing – Create lesson plans.
Copyediting – Check lesson plans for grammar, spelling and punctuation and make sure it aligns with our style guide.
Testing – Help run tests of betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. lessons at Meetups or workshops and let us know how it went.
Auditing – Check content for accuracy with the current version of WordPress
Connecting – Group lesson plans that together would coordinate for a workshop
Reviewing – Screenshots to compare with current appearances

The workflow for Training Lesson Plans is tracked on a Google Apps Sheet: WP Community Training Lesson Plan Progress as in the Getting Started section. The general workflow for lessons is tracked in a Status field:

In Progress
Ready for copyediting
In Copyediting
Ready for testing
Complete

In addition there is tracking of lesson assignments with the following fields:

Current Owner
Username
Previous Owners
Progress
- Started
- Date to Complete
Team Review
- Copy Editor
- Status
Final Review
- Testing Stage
- Testing Results
Ongoing Review

There is a Key tab in the Progress Sheet, but that appears to be out of date:

correct
needs copyeditor recheck
abandoned
possibly abandoned
Ready to Test

Make WordPress Training includes two guides for writing and editing lesson plans:

There is a set of guides and tracking documents already in place; it seems they could be reviewed for updates and documentation to clarify the copyediting process.

Plugin features would be helpful for copyediting tasks and workflow for published lesson plans. However, with editorial tracking already in place with the Progress sheet, the plugin does not need to recreate nor constrain that part of the process.

Some potential solutions:

Revisions to backtrack editorial changes
Apply strikethrough & color coding to text during editing for review
Google G Suite Docs
- Revisions History
- Suggestions
- Comments
  - TagTag Tag is one of the pre-defined taxonomies in WordPress. Users can add tags to their WordPress posts along with categories. However, while a category may cover a broad range of topics, tags are smaller in scope and focused to specific topics. Think of them as keywords used for topics discussed in a particular post. user
- Bookmarks
- Footnotes
- Research Tool
- Dictionary
- Offline mode
Editflow plugin:
- Calendar – A convenient month-by-month look at your content.
- Custom Statuses – Define the key stages to your workflow.
- Editorial Comments – Threaded commenting in the admin for private discussion between writers and editors.
- Editorial Metadata – Keep track of the important details.
- Notifications – Receive timely updates on the content you’re following.
- Story Budget – View your upcoming content budget.
- User Groups – Keep your users organized by department or function.
JetPack plugin—After the Deadline:
- Contextual Spell Checking
- Advanced Style Checking
- Intelligent Grammar Checking

Are there other copyediting concerns or potential solutions?

estes.chris 2:04 pm on October 17, 2016

This is a pretty deep dive and I appreciate it. I’ve been accustomed to “moving into” organizations that had an editing structure in place and applying that structure to my work. Editing online is a new experience for me because I left journalism before the big dip in print publications. Thank you for laying these options and suggestions out so clearly.
- skarjune 3:36 pm on October 17, 2016
  
  Didn’t intend to go so deep when I accepted the followup, but a lot of questions & concerns came up in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. & the Training Team has a lot of tools already in place.
skarjune 12:19 am on October 18, 2016

I’ve scanned the repo & reviews for other editorial plugins. Not much beyond Editflow, just Oasis Workflow which would require a Premium version + AddOns to just to get on par with Editflow features.

TinyMCE Advanced, or similar, could be used to add a Background Color icon to the edit toolbar to go along with Strikethrough, as both means have been suggested for highlighting editorial changes.
nuggetsol 3:25 am on October 18, 2016

skarjune,

Thank you for defining the requirements clearly. I’m the developer of Oasis Workflow pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. Since you mentioned about Oasis Workflow plugin, I wanted to list down some of the features our users love about our plugin; many of which are not available with Editflow.

1. Ability to define multiple workflows. Our users define specific workflows for specific post types. Some post types require a quick and easy workflow, while others require a more elaborate workflow. With a drag and drop workflow builder, it’s easy to envision and define your editorial workflows.

2. Task Claim – Allows to assign tasks to multiple contributors. One can claim the task and own it.

3. Auto Submit – Submitting to a workflow depending on certain criteria. Users who create series of articles on same topics, love the auto submit feature. It automatically submits the articles for review to a specific workflow which meets a specific criteria.

4. Editorial Process for RevisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. – Allows to revise a published article, while keeping the published version online. The revision goes through the editorial review process before the changes are published. So, not only new posts but the revised posts can also flow through the same editorial review process. One can also schedule the revision updates, which helps with time-sensitive content.

5. Revision Compare – Our revision compare feature not only compares content, but also compares post metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress.. With the “ACF Compare” add-on, the users can compare some of the ACF fields too.

6. Contextual Comments – Users are able to select specific text in the content and provide contextual review comments. This helps them to provide comments on specific text in the content.

7. Groups and Teams – For bigger teams, the groups and teams add-ons help them to further organize their editorial workflows.

8. Workflow History – The editorial history captures all the task sign off actions. It not only helps to backtrack/audit the editorial review (required by law firms, financial organizations) but also helps to improve the process.

9. Editorial Checklists – This add-on helps the users to automate some of their content strategies, by adding automatic checks within the process. Examples include, “A post should at least have 2 tags”. “A Page should at least have 3 links” etc.

10. Due Date and Personalized Email Reminders – With task reminders and due dates, the content flows in an organized fashion and helps admins to publish the articles on-time.

11. Task Reassign – In a multi-author environment, there are times when you may want to assign your task to another user. Reassign feature allows users to assign your current task to another user(s) without breaking the review process.

There are other features like, “assigning priority to the tasks”, “viewing other user’s inbox”, “versioning your workflows for smooth transition when your editorial review processes change”, aborting a workflow”, “task dashboard”, “export/import workflows”, “hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. and filters to add custom functionality” help our users to keep their content flowing in an organized fashion.
- skarjune 2:15 pm on October 18, 2016
  
  nuggetsol, Thanks for the explication of Oasis Workflow features. The Make WordPress Training team is considering Editflow, as we don’t necessarily need all features, and Editflow includes Groups and Editorial Comments out of the box, while those are addons for Oasis Workflow. Still, I did want to bring the alternative to the team’s attention for consideration, as it is a popular pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party and does have many features to consider. Thanks!
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