Revised: 28th April 2010
With respect to reviewing edited manuscripts, the abbreviations I use to communicate issues needing special attention are:
- ALT — I offer an alternative text to that highlighted;
- AMB — The highlighted text is ambiguous;
- CK — Check the highlighted text: there may be an issue concerning factual accuracy, style, etc. This kind of comment raises "Are you sure?" questions;
- CR — I've changed the highlighted text, but my text may still have an issue. In contrast to the CK scheme, this kind of comment asks "Is what I've written OK?" questions;
- DEL — I've deleted a lot of content-carrying text at point. Typically, this is because my editing brief asked for shortening of the text, and I consider the sentence either redundant (repeating what has already been said), or that it doesn't help establish the theses asserted in the abstract and introduction;
- NB — ''Nota Bene'': there is some general point worth taking into consideration;
- NC — The highlighted text was not clear to me, and I did not understand it fully;
- STY — The highlighted section raises some issue concerning the agreed-upon style guide.
For systems allowing comments spanning a segment of text, such as Word and Latex, then this will be the appropriate highlighted text.
OpenOffice Writer and Adobe Acrobat's comment facilities don't allow comments to be associated with a highlighted text, but instead point to a particular place in the document. I use the same comment scheme, where "highlighted text" is interpreted to be some region of text following the comment.
