Editing for Usability, Accessibility, and Inclusivity in Writing Center Documents
Location
Session 2 (Room 1300)
Session Format
Oral Presentation
Your Campus
Statesboro Campus- Henderson Library, April 20th
Academic Unit
Department of Literature
Research Area Topic:
Humanities & Social Sciences - Literature & Philosophy
Co-Presenters and Faculty Mentors or Advisors
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Joanna Schreiber
Abstract
I am working with the Georgia Southern University Writing Center to edit their lesson sheets, worksheets, and answer keys. These documents are intended to help students with academic writing norms in the United States. Students and teachers from within and out of the university may have access, and the writing center may not be part of the learning process. Thus, they need to be effective stand-alone tools to serve a variety of writing situations, questions, and audiences. To do so, the documents should be usable, accessible, and inclusive. That is, the audience should be able to effectively use the documents, such as applying the content to a situation. The audience should be able to engage with and understand the documents through understandable language, screen reader readability, cognizant color choice, and more. The audience should also feel included within the document content regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, and more. To address these concerns, I began the project by performing a content audit on the existing documents. Based on the review, I developed a multi-pass checklist that includes editing for content, structure, usability, inclusivity, accessibility, consistency, and style. Currently, I am editing the documents on the individual level and on the collective level. I will show my initial editing stages by demonstrating the documents’ issues of usability, accessibility, and inclusivity and by explaining the resulting decision-making process that developed the multi-pass checklist. I will showcase a few finalized documents to demonstrate how editors address the selected issues and thereby increase the effectiveness of the documents’ communication.
Program Description
I am editing the University Writing Center’s writing conventions handouts. These documents have a duty to effectively communicate by being usable, accessible, and inclusive. I began editing by performing a content audit. I developed a multi-pass checklist that includes editing for content, structure, usability, inclusivity, accessibility, consistency, and style.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Presentation Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Start Date
4-20-2022 1:00 PM
End Date
4-20-2022 2:00 PM
Recommended Citation
Salverson, Brenna C., "Editing for Usability, Accessibility, and Inclusivity in Writing Center Documents" (2022). GS4 Georgia Southern Student Scholars Symposium. 56.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/research_symposium/2022/2022/56
Editing for Usability, Accessibility, and Inclusivity in Writing Center Documents
Session 2 (Room 1300)
I am working with the Georgia Southern University Writing Center to edit their lesson sheets, worksheets, and answer keys. These documents are intended to help students with academic writing norms in the United States. Students and teachers from within and out of the university may have access, and the writing center may not be part of the learning process. Thus, they need to be effective stand-alone tools to serve a variety of writing situations, questions, and audiences. To do so, the documents should be usable, accessible, and inclusive. That is, the audience should be able to effectively use the documents, such as applying the content to a situation. The audience should be able to engage with and understand the documents through understandable language, screen reader readability, cognizant color choice, and more. The audience should also feel included within the document content regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, and more. To address these concerns, I began the project by performing a content audit on the existing documents. Based on the review, I developed a multi-pass checklist that includes editing for content, structure, usability, inclusivity, accessibility, consistency, and style. Currently, I am editing the documents on the individual level and on the collective level. I will show my initial editing stages by demonstrating the documents’ issues of usability, accessibility, and inclusivity and by explaining the resulting decision-making process that developed the multi-pass checklist. I will showcase a few finalized documents to demonstrate how editors address the selected issues and thereby increase the effectiveness of the documents’ communication.
