RE: Workflow

["Dauphin, William M." <william.dauphin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Emory [mailto:danemory7224@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>>Your comment that reviewing and writing aren't
synonomous ignores the fact that both are part of the
same process,<<

Yes, but separate functions within the process... a nontrivial distinction.

>>...and the ideal way to accomplish that
process is to give reviewers the same authoring power
as writers...<<

I have a different take: From my POV, once authors submit their initial
drafts, they stop being "authors" and turn into "reviewers." Of course, in
real life, nothing's ever that clean, but to the greatest extent possible,
once I've got a complete draft in my (editorial) hands, I treat all the
people who provide comments as "reviewers," regardless of whether they had a
hand in authoring the original draft text. That is, when it comes to
collecting and incorporating redlines, there's no functional difference
between authors and reviewers.

>>As one who once ran a proposal group, I can attest
that, although is is cumbersome, circulating a paper
copy to reviewers yields the most thorough and
complete comments.

And I disagree that PDF is the ideal medium for
conducting reviews.<<

I broadly agree that paper-and-pen is often the best and (at the system
level) most efficient way to collect markups, but I find my author/reviewer
community is increasingly resistant to using such
stone-knives-and-bearskin-rugs methods <g>. (This, BTW, is in stark contrast
to a decade ago, when I would regularly get initial drafts in handwritten
form and have to *beg* for electronic files.) My sense is that PDF may be
the best way to *approximate* a paper markup for user communities unwilling
to work with real paper. The example you cite is instructive:

>> How, for example, can a reviewer
clearly indicate in a PDF copy that a paragraph,
phrase or sentence should be moved,<<

Indeed, it's not easy... but it's even harder if your reviewer is working in
RTF or Frame. At least the Acrobat markup tools will let you draw boxes and
arrows; Word's change tracking has no way to show a move as anything other
than a deletion and an addition, leading to the delightful experience of
deleting a paragraph on Page 2 only to have to retype exactly the same words
on Page 18! And Frame doesn't even have Word's facility at real-time change
tracking.

-Bill

** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **