Making a document

A reader chooses here by the stage or side of producing a document: planning and drafting it, finding and handling its sources, revising and reviewing it, or managing the project and the people it passes through. What a particular document must contain is left to areas of practice, and so are the reporting guideline a report follows, the managed development of a regulatory submission document, the journal route after the manuscript and carrying the document across a language barrier. The software and the AI the work runs through belong to tools and technology, and the writer's career, practice and profession to profession.

• Planning and drafting a document — from the assignment to a finished draft: establishing the assignment and assembling the instructions, examples and kit it needs, narrowing an idea to a focus statement and an outline, and making an entry into the first draft and reaching a defensible finish
• Finding and managing sources — where the material a document rests on comes from and what becomes of it: orienting in a new subject, the search and the tools it runs in, keeping up, reaching the full text, the expert interview, the reference shelf, specialist sources beyond the literature databases, and keeping and citing sources
• Revising and reviewing a document — what happens to a draft once it exists: the editing passes over its text, critique between one reader and its author, quality control against sources and standards, and the review a team of reviewers runs
• Managing projects and the people on them — the project around a document and the people it runs through: running a client, editorial or publication project, the colleagues a document passes through one role at a time, and the team working together (co-writing, communication across differences, a team spread across countries and time zones, leadership without authority, and the difficult conversation)