efficiently processing feedback in Track Changes and Comments

If you send your work to me or another editor, you’ll probably end up dancing with Microsoft Word’s Track Changes and Comments features—or their equivalents in some other word processor. Even if you just ask friends or classmates to read your draft, chances are high you’ll eventually run into this particular mode of giving and receiving feedback.
 
I’m sure everybody can muddle through! But you’ll be happier and less overwhelmed armed with some strategies for processing this kind of input. (You might even end up with a better, more polished manuscript.) And that’s what this post is for.

Track Changes allows us to edit a document while keeping the changes visible and easily reversible; I toggle on Track Changes, and the document keeps track of anything I add, delete, move, or reformat in any way. That way, you can tell what I’ve done and decide whether to keep the change, go back to what you had, or reject my change but fix the problem in your own way. That’s incredibly helpful, but it can also result in a hard-to-read document full of scary red lines and different text colors.
 
Comments are digital sticky notes that attach to specific pieces of text. They let me leave a question, idea, observation, reaction, or resource without changing the actual text, and later you’ll be able to tell exactly which punctuation mark, word, sentence, or paragraph I’m referring to. But when you open up your novel manuscript and find four hundred comments, where are you even supposed to start?
 
Before we get into specific strategies, here’s a big-picture note. When you receive your marked-up manuscript from a professional editor, you will probably find a lot of comments and suggested changes. Like, a lot a lot: While every project is different, ten to thirty thousand interventions seems pretty typical for a book-length edit.
 
So take breaks. Remember that your work has lots of good in it already, and that it’s getting better and better through this process. (Yes, even if it looks like a giant mess for a while.) You can do this.

viewing tracked changes

First things first: You can view text that includes tracked changes in multiple ways. If you don’t already know that, try playing around with the options in a document now.
 
Microsoft Word offers four view options:

• All Markup, the view I operate in by default: This view shows every change in full detail, using text colors, strikethough, and single and double underlining.
• Simple Markup: Instead of making every intervention visible, this view just places a vertical red line in the margin next to any changes. If you want more details, clicking on the red line takes you to All Markup. (If you find All Markup visually overwhelming, maybe try Simple Markup.)
• Original: Shows the text as it was before anything was done with Track Changes toggled on.
• No Markup: Shows the newest version of the text as though all tracked changes have been accepted. But they have not: They are still are there to accept or reject once you switch back to All Markup.

 
There are also more granular options for what Track Changes looks like on your screen. Go to the Review ribbon tab, look for Tracking, and click on the little down arrow next to it to get to Markup Options (or follow Word’s instructions for whatever version you’re running).

• I strongly advise Show Revisions in Balloons, not Show All Revisions Inline (which can get pretty chaotic!), but to each their own.
• With Reviewers, you can select whose feedback to view if there are multiple cooks in the kitchen.
• A lot of people find Track Changes unpleasant-looking or difficult to parse. Maybe red ‘ink’ just looks scoldy to you. You can change markup appearance, including colors, under Preferences here. Note that these changes in appearance only apply to your computer and will not stick if you send the document to someone else.
  

processing tracked changes

Here are some dos and don’ts for dealing with Track Changes feedback:
 
Save a copy of the edited file for your records. Then save a separate working copy of that edited file as your new current manuscript, with whatever naming convention you use. Do not manually apply edits from a line or copyedit into your own existing copy of the project. It is no fun to copy over tens of thousands of changes, and no human could avoid introducing new errors during that process.
 
Don’t click Reject on a significant proportion of a professional editor’s suggestions without a) taking time to process and breathe and b) checking in with the editor. If this is happening, you may not be in the right headspace for implementing edits, and/or there may be a communication problem that needs to be resolved.
 
If there are lots of tracked changes, read through all the changes looking for any you do not want to implement, click Reject on those, and then use Accept All Changes (in the Review tab, use the dropdown next to Accept). Way less clicking for you!
 
If you’re rejecting a change because you wish to fix the problem a different way, be sure to either make that edit immediately or insert a comment to remind yourself in a later pass.
 
Some people find it helpful to read the piece with all the edits integrated (No Markup view) to see how that version feels and which edits, if any, stand out as not okay. If you tend to obsess over what’s different or what’s been removed instead of what’s actually there, give this method a try! It gives you a chance to see how the edited version reads on its own merits.
 
Consider running spellcheck after accepting (or rejecting) all the changes. It’s easy to end up with missing spaces and other weirdnesses when using Track Changes, and this is a quick fix for that potential problem.
 
Feeling lost, or interested in making Word do your bidding a little better? You might find these resources useful: “The Writer's Guide to Track Changes” (Lisa Poisso); “Track Changes and Show Markup” (Microsoft, video about the basics, including display options); “Track Changes Tutorial” (Katherine Shears, video).

viewing comments

There are two main ways to view Comments, which you can access through the Review tab at Show Comments:

• Contextual: In this view, which is what I mainly use, a comment pops up when you get to the bit of the text it’s attached to.

• List: This view is useful for 1) checking out the general comments situation when you first open the marked-up document, 2) finding a comment you’ve already seen and want to go back to, and 3) checking whether there are still any comments lingering in a document when you’re nearly done.
  
• You can also hide comments (click Show Comments to toggle it off) to free up screen space if you’re not working at that level right now.

processing comments

When you’re processing comments from an editor or any other reader, consider starting with the easy decisions to reduce the total number of comments left to deal with.

For example, when processing feedback on my own work, I typically:

1. Delete every comment that does not require action from my working document. (If you do this, remember to really take in and feel the positive feedback, since this step deletes all the compliments and squees!)
   
2. Keep track of any issues I intend to address globally in a single comment at the top or in a separate to-do document, depending on the scope of the project.
3. Do a pass of frictionless decisions and corrections.
4. Start on the harder work and more puzzling problems, now in a far less overwhelming context.

Whether or not that exact process makes sense for you, I encourage you to have a plan and work systematically when you need to navigate large numbers of comments.
 
I hope this helps as you dive in to all that feedback and keep moving forward.

Happy editing!