Abstract

The literature on formative text evaluation pays scant attention to the revision phase following data collection. This article describes a small-scale experiment in which five professional writers were asked to revise brochure fragments on the basis of feedback from readers. The feedback consisted of readers' comments, selected from the results of a pretest of the brochures, regarding their acceptance of the information and their appreciation of text elements. Despite the wide variety of solutions that resulted, some interesting tendencies were found: In response to problems with factual acceptance, writers often decided to add information; in response to problems with normative acceptance, they often chose to substitute material; and in response to appreciation problems, they either deleted the problematic passage or substituted a different phrase.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
1997-10-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651997011004007
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Cited by in this index (5)

  1. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Communication Design Quarterly
  3. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  5. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication

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