A rhetorical editing method can help the editor redesign technical reports, when necessary, to meet the needs of the intended audience. If the editor sees that the author has not selected and arranged the ideas to accord with the audience and purpose of the report, he or she must reselect the necessary and sufficient ideas and rearrange them. Rhetorical editing thus calls on the editor to edit at the scale of the entire report—not just at the scale of individual words and sentences. Although seemingly a bold departure from conventional editing, rhetorical editing merely applies the principles of rhetoric widely used in technical writing and composition.
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