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Smith Editing offers editing, writing, illustration, formatting, document conversion, and indexing services for technical, corporate, or personal projects.
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Technical Samples: Writing & Editing

   We are versatile writers and editors who pay attention to the details. The samples below demonstrate our effectiveness. Tell us about your project and we can determine how we can best help you.
 
To give you zoom and search capability, and to let you use any platform, these samples are in PDF format. If you have not yet downloaded your free Acrobat Reader, click the Acrobat image.

Textbooks
textbook, text book
 Writing Testbenches: Functional Verification of HDL Models, by Janick Bergeron (www.janick.bergeron.com).This excerpt, “Behavioral versus RTL Thinking”, exemplifies the reasons for the book’s success besides key content: paragraph summaries that highlight, diagrams that support, samples that illustrate, headings that guide, and succinct paragraphs that deliver. Through editing this manuscript we supported Janick’s instincts for adding these features. (PDF file 137 KB)

Quick reference guides
quick reference guide, quick reference card
 e Language Field Guide. The distinctive aspects of this guide are its comprehensiveness (30 pages), its in-depth approach (it includes examples), and its usability (it’s innovative step-page layout gave direct access to the topic of interest). This guide was available as a printed version, which included coding guidelines, and an online version, which included bookmarks, hypertext links, and search capabilities. Page designer, formatter, illustrator, and editor. This guide was developed for Qualis Design (www.qualis.com), a verification IP, consulting, and training firm. (PDF file 405 KB)

Conference papers
technical or engineering paper, presenation
 "The Five -Day Verification Plan". Presented at the Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) 2000 meeting, this paper won a Best Paper award. This presentation details for verification engineers how to jump-start preparing a verification plan for a hardware design. Editor, page designer, and formatter. Also drafted and edited the companion PowerPoint presentation. Authored by Peet James of Qualis Design (www.qualis.com), a verification IP, consulting, and training firm. (PDF file 150 KB)

User and reference guides
user guide, reference guide, User Guide Reference Guide
 Lotus 1-2-3 for Sun, Reference Guide. This excerpt, “Creating an Encoded File”, is a platform-specific section added to the core 1-2-3 documentation. It also demonstrates the common approach used in a reference guide: conceptual material shown first with procedural text second; and numbered lists, cross references, figures, notes and tips added as needed. Team writer and peer editor. Lotus was a computer software developer best known for its spreadsheet product, 1-2-3. (PDF file 111 KB)

Functional specifications
functional specification, Functional Specification
 Lotus 1-2-3 with SmartHelp, Functional Specification. The charter of the R&D group at Lotus, which developed this product, was to explore new technologies and understand how to adapt them into business applications. However, this product so impressed senior management that it was funded and shipped as the first multimedia-enhanced application from Lotus. This excerpt describes the behavior of Bubble Help, a new feature now known as Tool Tips. Lotus was a computer software developer best known for its spreadsheet product, 1-2-3. (PDF file 103 KB)

Illustrations
network diagram, illustration, graphic
 Network diagram. Illustrated the network structure in place at the Qualis headquarters and remote office. Qualis Design (www.qualis.com) is a verification IP, consulting, and training firm. (PDF file 33 KB)
 
process improvement diagram, illustration, graphic
 Process improvement diagram. As part of a process improvement team for Qualis Design, illustrated the information flow for a key business component - training class delivery. Qualis Design (www.qualis.com) is a verification IP, consulting, and training firm. (PDF file 33 KB)
 
BFM diagram, illustration, graphic
 BFM diagram. To clarify the content in a technical presentation, we illustrated the structure the author was trying to convey. Blue shading highlighted the element being discussed. Qualis Design (www.qualis.com) is a verification IP, consulting, and training firm. (PDF file 53 KB)

Training materials
training material, slide
 Expert Verification Strategies for Broadband Datacom Using Specman Elite. This course was tagged for conditional assembly, which enabled selecting a subset of slides not only for the appropriate learning level (expert), but also for the target market of students (broadband datacom). Editor, formatter, illustrator as well as maintainer of conditional assembly tags, bug tracker, and producer of course books. This was a course developed by Qualis Design (www.qualis.com), a verification IP, consulting, and training firm. (PDF file 1,163 KB)

Computer-based training
computer-based training, CBT
 Show Me movie script. A Show Me movie presented either conceptual or procedural information about a feature in 1-2-3 that was hard to explain in printed text. Each script identified the Help pages that the movie could be launched from, the animations and corresponding narrations, and a summary of key points. Editor for project and author of several scripts. This project was created for Lotus, a computer software developer best known for its spreadsheet product, 1-2-3. (PDF file 114 KB)

Style guides
style guide
 Lotus Documentation Style Guide. This excerpt, the Preface, shows the scope, structure, and level of detail for the text. Negotiation skills proved key to making this project succeed. Fourteen strongly opinionated editors in different product groups had to move from mere participation to cooperation. These pages show the areas of consensus and compromise very well. Lotus was a computer software developer best known for its spreadsheet product, 1-2-3. (PDF file 88 KB)
About describes working with Smith Editing Expertise presents projects and clients Services explains what kind of improvements you can expect Samples demonstrates our proficiency Accolades shares enthusiasm about our work Connect here for rates and schedules specific to your project
Smith Editing edits, writes, illustrates, formats, converts, and indexes documents, manuscripts, and presentations for businesses and individuals for technical, corporate, or personal projects.