Authoring Service
Introduction
Here at Aardstorm we can write documents for you for a wide variety of purposes, and in a wide variety of formats, both electronic and on paper. These can be based on information either that you supply to us – to be rewritten for a different audience, or to be condensed or combined into new document – or that we have located for you through our research service. Typical documents we can produce include:
- A summary report, in either electronic form or on paper, for your own use.
- One or more pages for your website.
- An informative article for distribution across the internet, perhaps to help promote your website.
- A detailed report, brochure or booklet, in either electronic or paper from, for distribution within your organisation or externally.
- An electronic presentation, either in Powerpoint format, or as a DVD slide show, optionally complete with audio commentary and background music.
If you require a paper document with more than a few copies, or with high printing quality requirements, then we can also liase with commercial printing services to produce your documents.
This service is primarily concerned with the writing of text-oriented documents, although such documents may also contain many pictures or other graphics, either supplied by you or produced using our picture services. For further details of how we can put the text and pictures together to produce your final document, and generate the appropriate final copies, please see our document production service.
The rest of this page describes our document authoring service in more detail, including the range of standard document types that we can write for you, details of the information we will need from you to complete your document, and a description of how we will produce the text for your document. See our fees summary page for details of our standard charges for this service.
Information Sources
We can write documents either from information that we have found for you through our research service, or from information that you supply us with, or some combination of the two. Where you supply information to us, we can rewrite the supplied document(s), perhaps to produce some sort of summary document or target the new document at a different audience or production format.
We can also illustrate your new document with pictures and/or other graphics. Again the pictures can either be supplied by yourself, or you can commission us to locate or create suitable pictures through our picture services. The process of assembling the text and pictures into your final document is covered by our document production service.
We can accept your source document(s) and/or pictures in a wide variety of elecronic formats – if the file can be read by one of the components of the Microsoft Office (2003) or Adobe Creative Suite (CS3) program suites, then we can accept it. We can also accept your source information on paper or film (35mm negatives or transparencies only), but if these are to be included directly in the documents we produce for you, then the scanning and transcription charges described below will also apply. Small amounts of information in electronic form can be supplied to us as e-mail attachments, otherwise it is better to send the information to us on CD or DVD ROM.
Document Types
We can write a wide range of documents for you, for final production in either electronic or paper format. This section describes some of the more common document types that we can produce, in so far as the type of document affects how we write the text for it; if you have a requirement for a type of document that is not described here, we can probably also produce it for you, please contact us for a quotation. When requesting a quotation from us for a document, whether or not it is one of our standard types, please describe as fully as possible the document you require, including the depth and breadth of information it is to contain, its intended target audience, how it is to look, what format it is to be produced in, and how many copies we are to produce.
Simple Report
This document type is intended to complement our research service, so that we can fully report to you the information that we have found. It could, however also be used to commission us to produce a summary of a set of documents that you supply to us. For this type of document, we will summarise or explain the information that we have found (or you have supplied) to the level of detail that you request. This document type is also primarily intended to be read by yourself, or others in your organisation, rather than for distribution or publication to third parties.
Website Page
This document type is intended to complement our website design and implementation services, to allow you to commission us to produce some or all of the text for your site rather than providing it yourself, although we can also provide pages for use on a site designed by somebody else. For this type of document we will produce one or more web pages to your requirements from information you supply to us in other forms. These pages would typically be used to promote or describe your business or organisation, and/or its products or services.
Web Article
Although generally similar to the general web pages described above, a web article is primarily informative rather than promotional. This document type can therefore be produced from information located using our research service, as well as from information you supply to us. The resulting article could be included in your website (whether developed by us or by others), or it could be distributed across the web for inclusion in other sites or e-zines, to help promote your site and improve its search engine ranking.
Booklet, Brochure or eBook
This type of document can also be based either on information you supply to us, or that we locate for you through our research service. We can produce a brochure or booklet for you, of the length you require, and about almost any topic, for distribution to your target audience. It can also be either informative, educational or promotional in nature. We can produce it in electronic form, as an eBook, or on paper, or both.
Presentation
As well as the text-oriented documents described above, we can also produce presentation type documents, consisting of a series of 'slides' , each containing a combination of text and /or graphics, intended to be presented to an audience in sequence. We can produce such presentations either in Microsoft Powerpoint format, or as a standard video DVD. In both cases, we can also add backgorund music and/or an audio commentary, and provide accompanying materials for distribution to your audience. The audio commentary can be provided by yourselves, or we can record it for you, while the background music will be recorded by us from public domain sources using a professional workstation synthesiser. We can also include video clips provided by you in your presentation.
Authoring Process
The process used by Aardstorm to write a document to your requirements will normally consist of the following steps:
1. Request Quotation
You request us to supply a quotation for writing your document (and probably also one or more of our other services). At this point you need to supply us with sufficient information about your requirements for us to accurately estimate the work involved in writing your document. This will include such information as:
- The type of document required, and its intended final production format.
- What information is to be included in your document, in both scope and level of detail, and where it is to come from. If you are supplying some or all of the information to us, please indicate the quantity, format, and extent of modification required.
- The target audience for your document – who do you expect to read your new document, and how familiar are they likely to be with its subject?
If you are also commissioning any of our other services to assist in the production of your document, then you should also state your requirements for these too.
2. Supply Quotation
On receipt of your request, we will use the information you supply about your requirements to estimate the amount of work and other costs involved for us to write your document. If anything about your requirements is unclear, we will request clarification from you. We will then produce a firm quotation and send it to you. This will include a firm price and schedule for the work to be done (subject to no significant changes to your requirements), together with a summary of your requirements so that you can check that we have understood your request.
3. Place Order
If you accept our quotation, and decide to commission us to write your new document, you then place a firm order, and pay a deposit of 50% (less if stage payments have been agreed) of the total document and picture service fees, plus 100% of any third party fees. At this point you need to also supply us with the full text, pictures, and other graphics to be included in your document, or used as a basis for its production.
4. Locate Source Information
If you have commissioned us to locate the some or all of the information your document is to be based on through our research service, then this is when we will search for and gather it. Depending on the length and complexity of your document, completion of this stage may trigger an intermediate approval and/or stage payment phase, when we will supply you with preliminary results of our work for your approval, along with our invoice for a stage payment. We will not then proceed with further work on your document until we receive your approval and payment.
5. Write Document
Once we have gathered or received all necessary source information for your document, we will examine, analyse and organise it as necessary, then use it to write the text for your document. If the size of your document warrants an intermediate stage of approval and stage payment at this point, we may then supply you with a preliminary, largely unformatted, copy of your text, usually in electronic form (even if your document is to be produced on paper), for your approval, together with our invoice for the appropriate stage payment. We will not then proceed with further work on your document until we receive your approval and payment.
6. Document Production
Once we have produce the text for your document, and if necessary received your stage payment and approval, we will feed it into our document production service, along with any pictures and/or other graphics, and any other text, to be incorporated into your document, for final design, approval and production. Please see the description of our document production service for further details of this stage in the process.
Communication
Throughout the document production process, including the authoring process described here, communication between us will normally be via e-mail; you will therefore need to supply us with a valid e-mail address that we can use to contact you. If you require one or more face-to-face meetinga, we will be happy to visit you, but will charge extra for the travelling and subsistence costs incurred.