One of the most unique aspects of working in Ooligan Press is that our workforce turns over every two years as master’s students graduate. Because of this, one of the guiding principles of the press is the need for documentation that is both detailed, transferable, and storable. Documentation being anything that details instructions for completing press assignments, sequencing tasks for managers with time frames for preparing manuscripts for publication, and any additional information that may need to be referenced by future students. The importance of documentation is not only true for a student-run press like Ooligan but something that all publishing professionals should consider.

Good documentation takes into consideration its audience and their abilities; information needs to be easy to locate, and it needs to be updated. For the audience, it is important to think about striking the right balance between too many micro steps and too many leaps of logic. For instance, as a teaching press, Ooligan Press is often a student’s first foray into the responsibilities of publishing. In documentation, publishing jargon must appear so students can become familiar with it, but those terms must also be accurately and clearly defined. Questions must be anticipated and answered, but since these guides will be used for the same task on multiple books, they must be general enough as well. Often the best documentation writers are those who remember learning the subject matter themselves and who have had to both ask and answer questions on the subject matter. Great documentation anticipates confusion with clarification, defines important terms, and is broken into logical sectionals that are easy to navigate. Finally, documentation should be updated as needed. Making sure links are working, the information is accurate, and—depending on how causally worded it is—the jokes are fresh will make the document easier to read and reference.

Once great documentation has been put together, a publishing professional might wonder what to do with it. The first step is to make sure the documents are findable. A common issue is inconsistent saving mechanics. If documents are saved in a Google Drive, make sure they are in clearly marked folders with sharing access on, and if they are stored on a hard drive, create a folder that can be compressed and sent at once to keep those documents from being lost. Following a universal naming convention will also help when locating documents: “Fall2022_MarketingTraining” is a much easier folder to find than “Donna’s Material 2.0.” These pieces of documentation can be helpful in a traditional publishing office to provide proof of contribution to your organization. For instance, at performance reviews these documents are a road map to the work and value you added to a role. Even if the documentation you produce belongs to your employer and may be used even after you leave, you can still retain copies for a portfolio or to adapt to future roles as applicable. As a freelancer, documentation is even more important. Creating clear documentation that details work processes and timelines can be shown to clients or used to calculate rates. The same tenets of good instructional documentation can be applied to tracking costs and expenses and income for tax purposes, and storing documents that you may need to refer to months or years later. 

Whatever information you use in your professional career, taking the time to curate concise, clear documentation and practice good naming and organizational principles will give you a stronger foundation for future projects and help you easily explain what you do and how you do it.

Written by Samantha Gallasch.