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Rejecting a draft

Normally, we want work to keep moving forwards through our publishing pipe. This means that even if an article needs more input from a writer, the article stays in the 'editing' stage while the writer and editor discuss how to complete it.

In exceptional cases where a writer has submitted a draft that is not up to standard, an editor should reject the draft and send it back to the writer to work on alone. In this case we move the article back to 'drafting' stage, and it resumes its journey through the pipe once the writer resubmits it.

How and when to reject a draft

An editor should reject a draft if you think that the writer has submitted something that is far below our normal publishing standards and can't easily be fixed without a major rework. This includes

  • Obvious typos or grammatical errors that should have been caught by Grammarly or an LLM
  • Bad or unclear structure that indicates the writer did not do a final read through and self-edit before submitting
  • Failure to meet the requirements set out in the brief
  • Uninteresting drafts that are unlikely to provide value to a reader or a customer
  • Occurrences of mistakes that have been pointed out before with a request to not repeat them in future

Steps to reject a draft

Post a link to the article in #ritza-editing, with

  • Some information for the qa and editing team (e.g. 1-2 bullet points) about why you think the article should be rejected
  • Some feedback to the writer
  • Any context you know that you think is useful about why the writer might have submitted an article with these mistakes

In the channel we will then discuss and decide whether to:

  • Decide to reject the draft - send the article back to 'draft' stage and give the writer the feedback, and schedule a call with the writer to discuss. This will usually take priority over other work the writer has started working on in the interim
  • Decide to keep the article in editing. The editor and writer will have a call or Slack discussion and fix the article collaboratively.
  • Decide to proceed with a bulldozer edit. The Editor will finish the article for the writer without writer input.

Example

I think we should reject this draft <github.com/ritza-co/...> 

Reason:
* it contains a lot of repetition and the tone is completely wrong for the purpose. It also contains a lot of passive voice, which is something I've specifically asked Bob to avoid several times before

Feedback to writer:
* <link to doc, or several bullets on slack, or suggestion that this should be done in a call rather>

Extra Context:
* Bob and I spoke in a previous call that he was battling with understanding how to hit the right tone. I think if we give him some more time and practice this wouldn't be a problem in future.