The Missing Manual Editing Test
Missing Manuals are not only precise, thoughtful guides to computer products,
they're also warm, witty, and jargon-free. Even more demanding, the books
must contain enough clarity for the novice, but enough depth and detail for
the power user. Wrapping all those qualities into every paragraph is hard work.
So we need top-notch freelance editors to make sure the books
hit all the right notes.
To find people who are a good match for our series, we know of no better system
than a short audition.
Editors
While we have several staff editors on the Missing Manual team, we also have
more books than we can handle. We need freelancers who can:
- Edit in-progress books so they look, feel, and read like a Missing Manual.
Editing a Missing Manual is a combination of making changes in the text itself
and inserting questions to the author, asking for adherence to the series
guidelines, requesting more information or clarification of a point, or sometimes
just giving guidance for a rewrite. There are a lot of pieces an editor has
to keep in mind when reviewing a chapter. In addition, communication with
the author has to be thorough, clear, honest, and constructive.
Of course, we'll give you the guidance, tools, and feedback you need to
do the job. For starters, check out our authors'
guide (PDF) to learn
exactly what we're looking for in a finished book.
- Work rapidly and keep the books on track. In the world of computer books,
we have to publish quickly to keep up with new releases of software. When
books slip by even a month, we lose revenue and sometimes marketing opportunities,
too. Our editors have to turn chapters around quickly while maintaining the
standards of the series and while giving authors feedback that they'll
be able to incorporate smoothly.
- Deal with technology. You don't have to be a Java expert to work
on the Missing Manuals. In fact, it's probably better if you're
not a tech guru—that way, you can readily tell whether the author has
explained things in a way newbies will understand. But you do need to be
comfortable with, at a minimum, Word, email, and file sharing of various
kinds.
The Assignment
If this work sounds interesting to you, we'd like to give you an assignment:
take our four and a half-page
editing test (Word document).
The document is a few pages from a real manuscript on Photoshop Elements.
We'd like you to review the text and suggest ways to improve it, both by making
changes directly in the text and by querying the author to ask for additional
information, clarifications and/or rewrites. Here are some things to keep in
mind as you're working:
- Does the author give advice on why and when to use a feature before explaining
how to use it?
- Are the explanations clear and thorough?
- Is the material presented in the right order?
- Has the author used our page elements appropriately? Missing Manuals include
figures, long captions, notes, tips, sidebars, bulleted lists, and so on.
- Are there figures illustrating tough-to-explain concepts? Are there superfluous
figures? (You won't actually see the figures, so you'll be assessing
them based on the accompanying captions.)
- Is the voice conversational?
- Has the author hit the main MM style points, as described in the authors' guide?
If you've read our guide, and editing is your strong suit, you should be able
to Missing Manualize the writing. If you need additional guidance, check out
a Missing Manual or two; our published books are great examples of the kind
of finished writing we're looking for.
The document is in Word, and you'll need to use the program's
change-tracking feature and its commenting system. If you don't know
much about Microsoft Word, here's how you insert a comment: First, highlight
the portion of text that you want to comment on. Next, from the Insert menu,
click Comment to get a blank comment you can type right into.
Please make your changes with Word's Track Changes feature turned on (from
the Tools menu, choose Track Changes), so we can see what you've done. When
you're finished, send the result to
We're most interested in your test, but feel free to include any other
info we should know about you, such as your relevant experience and availability.
What Happens Next
We'll acknowledge your submission, and if your test suggests that you'd
make a good match, we'll follow up to discuss upcoming projects.
Thanks for your interest in the series!
--Team Missing Manual
