Heartful Editor Welcome

(February 2022 Edition)

•DIVERSITY: We honor the diverse backgrounds of our students, meet them where they are, and focus on setting and achieving goals that are unique to them.

•CARE AND SUPPORT: We cannot grow without a loving and supportive community of peers, coaches, and teachers who care about us and challenge us.

•PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION: We embrace imperfections with empathy and compassion, and we see them as opportunities to grow and learn.

•EXCELLENCE: We offer impeccable editing skills, meticulous attention to detail, and up-to-date knowledge on formatting guidelines and the mechanics of writing.

•SELF-CARE: We are committed to our own health and well-being and encourage our students and clients to eat well, get enough sleep, and stay active to help manage stress.

•TRANSFORMATION: We see writing and the work we do as a medium through which we can contribute to students’ growth and development and effect positive social change.

•INTEGRITY: We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in our work with students, faculty, and academic and career professionals.

THE HEARTFUL PHILOSOPHY

Heartful Editor’s academic writing coaches and editors are committed to our Standards of Excellence:

Heartful Support for Scholars of All Skill Levels

Enthusiasm and Encouragement in Every Interaction

Accuracy and Precision in Academic Writing Coaching and Editing

Responsive, Timely, and Clear Communication

Transparency in Our Editing Process

HEARTFUL EDITOR STANDARDS OF EXCELLENCE

• Founder and Editor-in-Chief
• Sara Henry
• Executive Director
• Sabrena O’Keefe
• Executive Administrator
• Lindsey Dippold
• Directors of Academic Coaching and Editing
• Ally Hartzell
• Emily Guetzioan
• Gillian Foss
• Susan Lantz
• Suzanne Baker
• Project Coordinator
• Leann Zink

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

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LONG-TERM TEAM

• Coaches and Editors
• Second-Level Reviewers
• Directors

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SHORT-TERM TEAM

• Coaches and Editors
• Second-Level Reviewers
• Ally Hartzell, Caleb Keith, DeAris Hoard, Shelley Price-Williams

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• APA Manual - Even if you just wrote your dissertation yesterday, there is still so much to learn from the APA manual.�
• Heartful Editor Guidelines - The guidelines cover “how-to” steps you need to know to work through the Heartful Editor process. �
• Email Announcements - The leadership team sends out regular email to support and guide editors (e.g., Tuesday tips, Heartful Editor updates, final review Fridays). Email is also where you find assignments and how you communicate with your director and students.

ESSENTIAL READING

• Email - Email is our primary form of communication with our students and each other. You will receive an invitation from GoDaddy with instruction on how to set-up your email.
• Slack - We use Slack for quick internal communications. It is a great place to ask other editors questions.
• Quickbooks - This is where you will enter your hours. We recommend you enter your hours as soon as you complete them. Students receive invoices each Monday based on the hours entered the week prior.

GETTING SET-UP

• ClickUp - This is our project management system so we are able to monitor the progress of projects in real-time.
• Bookmarks - It is helpful to Bookmark Heartful Editor Guidelines, Quickbooks, Slack, etc.

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GETTING SET-UP

Partner campuses: University of San Diego, Messiah, Tulane, Oregon Tech

Distribution process:

• Process: We do our best to balance the work between editors and match based on the projects you volunteer for, when possible.
• Check email regularly: Some matches have been missed due to our high email volume.

SHORT-TERM PROJECTS: �PROCESS

• Have you addressed student submission requests or noted where you stopped, and what is left for the second reviewer?
• Include submission details from Leann’s email (email submission notes only).
• Remember: May be student’s first experience with an online writing center; stay heartful in all of your communication & provide examples.
• Note common surface level review items (HE Guidelines, pp. 26–32); always use the surface level review to help.
• Switch between “all markup” and “simple markup” views before finalizing in Word; send to student in “all markup.”

SHORT-TERM PROJECTS: �STRATEGIES

Q: 48 hours from . . . when exactly?

A: The general guideline is 24–48 hours from when you receive the project.

We have 72 hours from when the student submits their project.

Q: What if the project is really big / small?

A: Use the Heartful Editor guidelines, the student submission details, and reach out to us for additional guidance and strategies

Q: Should we use more coaching or editing for ST projects?

A: More coaching for these projects; focus on helping students learn the why behind recommendations.

SHORT-TERM PROJECTS: FAQs

Q: What kind of feedback do editors receive?

A: Please be sure to review the email to the student to check for changes and additions from our review.

A: For APA errors or specific feedback, the second reviewer will email you a follow up; we will usually ask where in the APA manual you found specific guidance to clarify and we will provide the correct feedback as we interpreted the usage.

SHORT-TERM PROJECTS: FAQs

Details of each step available in the Heartful Editor Guidelines (pp. 27–28)

• INITIAL CONSULTATION WITH STUDENT
• EDITING OVERVIEW AND PAYMENT OF DEPOSIT
• PROJECT DESCRIPTION SENT TO HEARTFUL EDITOR TEAM
• INTRODUCTION MADE BETWEEN STUDENT AND HEARTFUL EDITOR TEAM
• CLARIFICATION OF TIMELINE AND WORKFLOW
• EDITING PROCESS BEGINS

LONG-TERM PROJECTS: �PROCESS

Details of each step available in the Heartful Editor Guidelines (pp. 28–32)

• EDITOR REVIEW OF CAMPUS GUIDELINES (1 Hour)
• SURFACE-LEVEL REVIEW OF THE TEXT AND REFERENCES (5-8 Hours)
• REFERENCE CROSS CHECK AND FULL EDIT OF CITATIONS/REFERENCES (4-6 Hours)
• LINE-BY-LINE REVIEW (1 Hour/10 Pages)
• ALIGNMENT WITH CAMPUS FORMATTING (2-4 Hours)
• FINAL REVIEW AND APPROVAL (2-5 Hours)

LONG-TERM PROJECTS: �EDITING PROCESS

• Coordinate timeline with your director - Your director will do a quality check of each step, so please coordinate with them prior to communicating a timeline to your student. Depending on the student’s needs, you may need to use an adjusted timeline (Heartful Editor Guidelines, pp. 33–34). If the student is from one of our campus partners, the final review will be done by the executive director. Be sure that is considered when creating your timeline.
• Surface-Level Review - We have a specific process for this, please complete each step outlined in the Heartful Editor Guidelines (pp. 35–45).

LONG-TERM PROJECTS: �STRATEGIES

We provide an example email for surface-level reviews (pp. 41–45).

• Please use the language provided in the email template for consistency.
• Please do not include any bullet points that you did not actually have to make an edit. There are some bullets that say “checked,” but if the edit was not made, it should not be included. That language is just to vary the list a bit.

During the surface-level review, you also want to be checking to see if there are any questions you might need answered to effectively complete the line by line review. Some examples:

• Changing “the researcher” to “I.” APA 7 prefers “I,” but some schools still do not.
• Capitalization of White. APA has it capitalized, some students intentionally leave it lower case to deemphasis it.
• Formatting of tables. Point out of tables need excessive formatting to see if the student would want to try to remedy it before we spend the time making the changes during the line-by-line review.
• Citing of participant quotes. If participant quotes are parenthetically cited, point out that they need changed to narrative introductions per APA. Let them know we will do during the line-by-line, but they can also address it before sending the document back to save on editing time.

LONG-TERM PROJECTS: �SURFACE-LEVEL REVIEW

• Beyond the Surface-Level - While each line-by-line review will require something different depending on where the student is in their process, their specific requests, campus guidelines, etc, we provide some of the most common edits that need made in papers in this section.
• Microsoft Word Tips and Tricks - Being familiar and using all the functions in Microsoft Word is just as important as knowing the rules in the APA manual. This section of the guidelines, along with an occasional Wild World of Word Zoom session, are provided to assist with common issues.

LONG-TERM PROJECTS: �RESOURCES IN GUIDELINES

• Remember that we are not students’ committee members, and we need to respect the role faculty play in this process and stay in our lane as academic coaches and editors—our support should be related to the writing, not the content, and our coaching should help the student refine what they’ve written but not steer them in a direction that may differ from the expectations of their committee or department. Always use your best judgment, and reach out for support if you feel stuck on where the line is!
• Find out more in the HE Guielines (pp. 14–16)

APPROPRIATE LEVELS �OF COACHING

Communication - As a distributed organization it is important to intentionally communicate. We may all be independent contractors working from our own locations but we have the combined goal to serve our students in the most heartful way we can. To do so we must communicate well and often.

• Keep all correspondence heartful: positive, encouraging, and supportive.
• Balance “heartful” with “direct and straightforward”—to set boundaries and to communicate matter-of-factly to clarify confusion or miscommunication. We support you 100% in maintaining your job, your health, and your relationships.
• Share hours worked and an overview of tasks completed in EVERY email update you send to a student—this is for transparency and one of the ways we “coach as we go.” It also helps us track hours and tasks completed in case an invoice is questioned.
• Share with the student what you need them to do (next steps). While we should always stay within the parameters of the project, we also have a responsibility to not let a student walk into obstacles that we might foresee—guide and coach them as needed and offer support.

COMMUNICATE

• Timelines - We have sample timelines in the Heartful Editor Guidelines (pp. 24–25) but projects may require adjustment. If you are running behind, communicate with your director to determine next steps to be sure the project gets completed on time. The student’s timeline needs to be our priority, so we function as a team to help each other when needed.
• Reach out - Keep in touch with students. If you have questions, email them. If they fall off timelines - send a friendly check-in to inquire how they are doing. If they are ready to defend - send an encouraging note!
• Have a question - Ask! We can all read the manual, but sometimes we still need some clarity. Use that “phone a friend option,” contact your director, send a Slack message, or reach out to a fellow editor.
• If there is ANY hint of conflict or dissatisfaction, alert your director and Sabrena as soon as possible.

COMMUNICATE

• We work with a WIDE range of needs and personalities. Students can be needy, transactional, over-the-moon complimentary, argumentative, super chill, checked out and ready to be done, directive and “in charge,” challenged by feedback that suggests they are not as far along as they think they are, new Word users, and so on.
• When you are challenged by their communication, breathe, locate your empathy, and try to remember how hard this was for you in the midst of the rest of your life.
• If someone is rude or disrespectful, alert your director or Sabrena immediately—don’t respond.
• Unless it is related to APA, we ALWAYS defer to the committee. We do not approve the students’ dissertation, and it is not our place to step into their ”territory.”

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS

SPEED AND ACCURACY

• The balance of these tend to be the top concern for all new editors.
• Accuracy should always be your #1 priority, not speed—speed should be your last priority. Mistakes made early only add time to the end of the project.
• Part of the learning is how to work smarter, not “longer,” and we can share tips and suggestions for efficiency with each other (e.g., search and replace).
• Prioritize the work based on the budget, the scope of the project, and the timeline.
• You are in control over how you use your time to get the work done.

DETERMINING TIME WORKED

ETHICAL TIME REPORTING

• Take into consideration the time you need to spend learning how to do something or looking something up—students are hiring us to do a job they expect us to know how to do, and they should not pay us to update a skill.
• BUT, you can (and should) count the amount of time you spend drafting an overview email to the student (e.g., work 1 hour and 40 minutes, spend 20 minutes drafting an email with an overview of time worked and tasks completed = 2 hours of time worked).
• We trust you to ethically account for your hours worked. We are here to help them learn and succeed, not to take advantage of them.

DETERMINING TIME WORKED

There are over 50 editors on the Heartful Editor Team! Working at your own desk does not mean you are alone. Here are some tips to engage with the Heartful Editor Community.

• Google Email: Add a profile photo for your Google email, this will ensure we can all see your beautiful face when we’re reviewing the Heartful Editor Guidelines!
• Slack: Add a photo to Slack too! Having pictures in our Slack profile helps all of us put names to faces and feel more “connected.” Slack is a great place to ask questions of the team.
• Facebook: We have a private Facebook group that is not very active currently, but it is another place to see everyone in one spot, and perhaps over time we’ll think of how to use this better!
• LinkedIn: You can add your position LinkedIn and link to Heartful Editor, so other members of the team can easily connect with you there, too!
• Community Zooms: Attend one of our Community Zooms, typically held once a semester. These are nonmandatory “happy hours” with your fellow Heartful Editor team members!

If you have not received an invite to these community builders, let Sabrena know!

COMMUNITY

Questions?

Let us know!