| the proofreading procedure |
| Context |
- After we process your data, and also at other times, we will send you an email with the subject "Here is what we have in our database" (what is this?). The purpose is
- to show you everything we have in our database on your events, whatever the source
- It also acts as a confirmation of what we have received and accepted.
- When you get our email, proofread our text, write your revisions according to our instructions, and send it back to us.
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| What do we do when we get your email? |
- reply to our email (if you have trouble, read this)
- do not modify the headers that are automatically put into place (i.e. the To (which was our From) and the Subject line which we chose)
- do not delete any part of our text, including our preamble
- compare our data with the facts (not the format) of your original listings
- if everything is correct and we have no questions, write at the top of the body of your email "It's all good.", or something to that effect
- if you have corrections, answers to our questions, cancellations, etc., write at the top of your email "A few corrections noted below" or "Answers below", or something to that effect, and mark your revisions (see the next row).
Make sure you know how to reply to emails properly, and know the different parts of an email (headers, preamble, etc.). read more |
| How should we mark our revisions? |
Use our standard notation explained in our examples page. There are 3 kinds of revisions:
- answers to our questions
- corrections or changes (ex. wrong date or postponement)
- things to remove: duplicates | cancellations | unexpected listings
In any case, do not remove the incorrect text or our question, or any other part of our original text. We need to compare the old with the new. |
| What these sets of instructions have in common |
- do not delete, replace, remove or modify any part of our original text; only inserting is allowed, and only in the right places.
- put your cursor in the right spot
- either immediately after the field with the question or the error, not within the field itself
- or immediately before the listing to remove, touching it.
- insert a blank line
- on this line, type ***, followed by your correction, answer, removal request, etc.
For each ***revision, we simply compare the new with the old: the change with the original; the answer with the question; the listing to removed with the instruction to remove it.
Please know the difference between a listing and a field, and between a field and a line, click here) or at the top of the listing if it's for the whole listing (like a cancellation or duplicate). |
| Why the triple asterisks *** ? |
- To help us find and process your revisions quickly using the Find function.
- The *** are not likely to be part of any listing text; they are findable with the Find function; they are universal characters (shift-8 on most keyboards); they are not affected by system incompatibilities.
- Font attributes such as colour, bold, italics, underline and size can get lost during transmission.
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| What should we do if we have an event to add? Should we just insert it in the right spot, chronologically, in our reply? |
No. As you can see above, "new listings" is not one of our accepted revisions, simply because we already have a procedure for sending new listings. See step 1 sending of this procedure.
Also because revisions and additions are not processed by the same people.
And why would you need a proofreading email to remind you that you got new listings. You already know that, so you can send them to us as soon as you have them. It has nothing to do with this opportunity to proofread. |
Should we a) change a few details or
b) cancel the listing and make a completely new one? |
Sometimes when an orchestra does the same concert repeatedly, they have to add, remove or move performances. But to inform us of this, they don't always use the simplest method. For example, they write ***cancellation on one listing and they add another listing elsewhere in the list. As if chronological order had to be maintained at all cost (it's not necessary in step 2 proofreading), or as if the way the changes are marked had to reflect the way the decisions were made. It's much simpler (for you and for us) to just change the fields Date and/or Venue.
Remember we process revisions in the order we find them. So we can't possibly see that one cancellation is related to one addition.
Similarly, if the presenter of a subscription recital series wants to tell us of a change of concert (= new title, works & performers) because their artists for a given date cancelled, it's simpler just to correct those 3 fields than to cancel the listing and make a new one (same date, time, venue, price, phone, series, festival, notes).
So if it's "the same concert", just make the few changes,
don't do "cancellation + addition". |
| What do we do with the HIWWH email afterwards? |
Keep our email as reference, even if it's 100% correct, until you get another one to replace it. |
| What if we have many corrections and the deadline is tomorrow? Can we just correct one block at a time. |
Yes. You can send us your revisions in sets. Send us at least the revisions for the upcoming issue so we can finish the print calendars. Or send us your revisions for half your season. Send the rest later as soon as you can, so our readers can get the correct info. |
| What if we have program changes, cancellations, etc. later on? |
You can also use our HIWWH email for sending us changes later on, whenever there is a change on your side.
Or you can send us an email with the word "change", "cancellation", etc. in your subject line. The change must be easy to spot, not lost in the middle of a press release. Why not use *** here too! |
| What if we can't find your latest HIWWH email? |
Ask us to send you a fresh one. |
| why there are differences between our text and yours |
contents >> questions | errors | duplicates | unexpected listings
Our questions are always marked by "???". This is not a sign of impatience, it is simply a combination of characters that is unlikely to be part of your original text, and easy to find. To do a find in your email, do apple–F or control–F. To find again (and again and again...), do apple–G or control–G.
If there is a "???" but there is no specific question, it means "please give us more details" or "what does this word mean?"
Questions will not appear in the printed calendars.
When we get the info for a same event from more than one source (ex. from the orchestra, the venue, the festival, a choral association, the presenter, the sponsor, the soloist's agent, PR people, etc.), or any time the info is sent through intermediaries, it increases the risk of error.
- sometimes new emails have old info, especially when the communications contract/agreement isn't very clear about timing.
- sometimes new emails have less info than old emails, especially when they are not sent by the same person.
- you gave info to your PR lady last July for a concert in December, and you didn't tell her about changes that occurred in the meanwhile; so she can't inform us of those changes
- you gave info to your PR lady last July for a concert in December, and you did tell her about changes that occurred in the meanwhile; but she considers that her job is done, so there!
- you send us an email with all the works in detail in July; the program changes, and you do tell your contacts; one of them sends us a new email without including the works because he doesn't think it's essential or because it's not part of his agreement with you; that contact will say to you that he sent us your new info, but he doesn't tell you that he never includes works in his emails.
- you give your program to a festival where you will perform, the festival sends us info on all its concerts as well they should, but they don't include the works for any of the concerts because they don't have them for ALL the concerts (it's the old "all or nothing" trick!)
- we get a first email for an event, without detailed works, we send you our email with our questions "works???", you never answer our email; we get a second email for the same event from a different source which has the info we want but is not clearly identified as having new info for us because that other source has no way of knowing that we already got an email about that event, so we have to ignore the newer email (all new info must be identified as either a correction, cancellation, new listings, etc.); so the info is lost.
- etc. etc. etc.
Conclusion, recommendations:
- only one person should send us info for any given event, and send us corrections later on if any.
- whoever sends us the info should send it complete and according to our formatting requirements (one of the purposes of which is to make sure it's complete)
- when you want to inform us of a change, always use the proofreading procedure outlined at the top of this page, instead of sending us your latest general press release.
- do not send us the same info twice unless it's a clearly marked correction. We ignore all reminders, weekly PSAs (daily sometimes!), press releases.
- you should send and receive a copy of all emails sent by the other parties involved in your event (producer, promoter, publicist, venue, festival...), so all parties involved can make sure they have the correct and complete info.
There can be other differences which are not errors:
- we use standard formats and syntax for listings, especially to shorten the printed calendar (for example, we group performers by instrument, and we group works by composer)
- we may change the language of the works
- we reject redundant, vague or useless information
- we insert questions where there is missing info
It is also possible that we misunderstood what you meant. In any case, your patience will be appreciated.
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In the following table, / means "and/or".
| case |
probable explanation |
discovery |
correction |
same date/time/place,
same contents/performers |
info for the same concert sent by two different organizations at different times |
can be detected within the database using a pre-programmed script, but we can only do it at the last minute during production (because we have no way of knowing when a duplicate is going to come in), and it slows down production |
we erase the second listing |
same date/time/place,
different contents/performers |
change of contents/performers not conveyed properly |
we send an urgent email to both parties, wait for their replies |
| two listings sent by two different organizations, one of them made an error in date/time/place |
different date/time/place,
same contents/performers |
change of date/time/place not conveyed properly |
it's the client who spots it in our "Here is what we have "email,
and they must mark it in their revisions.
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different date/time/place,
different contents/performers |
the second cocnert is a replacement for the first, but the change of date/time/place & contents/performers was not properly conveyed |
| why there are unexpected listings |
In our "Here is what we have" emails, you may find listings that don't belong there, for different reasons, like:
- someone else sent us erroneous information about your organization (in this case, you should ask us where we got our info, because we are not in the habit of inventing listings)
- a keyword (a text string, to be exact) similar to the name of your company appears in the listing (this happens when a company's name sounds general, like "The Baroque Orchestra")
- your organization is a venue or a presenter, and one of your concerts is repeated in another venue or by another presenter
- etc.
Do not ask us to remove a listing that might belong to another organization simply because you don't recognize it.
| basic info >> difference between a listing, a field and a line |
| this is a listing
it has many fields |
2001 10 15
20:00
The Big Arts Centre, 555 Cross Road, Nowhereville, QC
$10-20
444-555-6666, 777-666-5555
Big Wigs Concerts
Classical Viennese Sonatas
Beethoven: Violin Sonata #5; Mozart: Piano Sonata #6; Violin Sonata #3 "La Pazza della Pizza"; Haydn: Violin Sonata #36 "Die Kranke"
Nowhereville Community Orchestra; Gary Baldy, conductor; Nursery Quartet (Jack Horner, Peter Piper, violins; Lilian Muffet, cello, viola de gamba; Jill Waterpale, piano, harpsichord)
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| these are fields
some have one line, some have many lines (depending on how wide your window is open), but they all end with a return (invisible, of course), and that's where you should insert your new line and *** if you have a correction or an answer.
we are showing you the field names, you do not need to write the field names in your listings, we know what is what (99.9% of the time) |
| date |
2001 10 15 |
| time |
20:00 |
| where |
The Big Arts Centre, 555 Cross Road, Nowhereville, QC |
| price |
$10-20 |
| phone |
444-555-6666, 777-666-5555 |
| series |
Big Wigs Concerts |
| title |
Classical Viennese Sonatas |
| works |
Beethoven: Violin Sonata #5; Mozart: Piano Sonata #6; Violin Sonata #3 "La Pazza della Pizza"; Haydn: Violin Sonata #36 "Die Kranke" |
| performers |
Nowhereville Community Orchestra; Gary Baldy, conductor; Nursery Quartet (Jack Horner, Peter Piper, violins; Lilian Muffet, cello, viola de gamba; Jill Waterpale, piano, harpsichord) |
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| this is a line
(line 1 of the field works from above) |
| Beethoven: Violin Sonata #5; Mozart: Piano Sonata #6; Violin |
as you can see, it doesn't stand on its own, it's incomplete (unless the whole field is contained within one line, such as the date and the time), it varies according to the window size, so it would not make sense to enter a correction at the end of this portion of text.
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so to summarize, normally
- a field ends with a return (so technically, a field is a paragraph, even if there is no blank line between paragraphs within the listing)
- and a line within a paragraph ends with an invisible "end of line" code, and where it breaks depends on how wide your window is open
unless the email system added a return at each line, which is annoying,
but it doesn't affect where the field ends in reality, you should still be able to recognize the difference between a work and a performer.
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| basic info >> our HERE IS WHAT WE HAVE emails (anatomy of an email) |
These emails are generated directly from the database, with one click. We may add a few comments if necessary.
the headers
The FROM address depends on which region of Canada you are in, or if you are a radio or TV station, or a summer festival. The subject is always the same.
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To: Company XYZ <info@xyz.com>
From: Eric Legault <xxxcalxxx@scena.org>
Date: 30 Octember 2004, 5:00 PM
Subject: Here is what we have in our database |
the preamble
is standard except for the target company and the time scope. It includes a summary of our proofreading procedure; followed by a link to the webpage you are reading now.
DO NOT delete this preamble in your reply, we need to see it because it has some important info like the name of the company, the chronological scope and the number of questions, and sometimes extra questions and comments that we need to followup on.
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We have recently modified your listings in our database.
Here is what we have for Company XYZ after today.
Please proofread our data.
We have 1 question (see ''???'' below).
If you don't have the answer to a question, just skip it for now and send it to us later.
HOW TO MARK YOUR REVISIONS
- Reply to this email.
- Put your cursor immediately after the field which contains an error or a question, and insert a blank line (by pressing the Enter key once or more, depending on your system).
- On this new blank line, type *** followed by your revision. It must be clear if you want me to add text or to replace text. By retyping the whole field, it should be clear.
- Do not delete or type over any part of my text, including questions, errors and the preamble.
I will simply look for each occurence of ***, and compare your revision with my original.
For more info, click here. |
your listings
more specifically, the listings we have in our database related to your organization, regardless of the source. These just happen to be in the format that we like to receive listings in, so you can keep them for future formatting reference.
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listing
listing
listing
listing
etc.
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our automatic signature
includes the coordinator's name, the email address (same comment as in headers section), a link to the guide's main page, and stuff about the company.
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Eric Legault
free calendars coordinator
email: xxxcalxxx@scena.org
our calendar guide - everything you need to know http://calendar-guide.scena.org
La Scena Musicale • The Music Scene
http://en.scena.org
our current issues downloadable in pdf format through our website
charitable organization number: 141996579 RR0001 |
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free calendars