Often times when a writer finishes a document, there is information that people need to make it look like what the writer had in mind. Most often, this information has to do with the appearance of graphic illustrations and their placement in the design. As with most things in this business, there are terms we use for this type of information.

The problem is that not everyone uses the same terms everywhere. With our increasingly global markets, we must take special care to understand exactly what our customers expect. Some terms, as we’ve seen in previous Good Words, don’t always mean the same thing from place to place, even within the good old United States of A., let alone when we are negotiating across international borders.

When we received an email from a subscriber asking for a definition, I didn’t see any problems until I started asking among other writers I know. This article is the story of my search for clarity.

The term is go for, GO FOR, Pass, or go for, depending on who you ask. When I tried Google, I discovered that “the round goby, Neogobius melanostomus, is a bottom-dwelling freshwater goby in the family Gobiidae, native to central Eurasia, including the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.” Interesting, but not very helpful.

From some of the other sources I checked, I got the term the writer is rude which is sometimes used as a synonym for passing and sometimes as something totally different.

GO FOR

1. A sketch or illustration showing the graphics department what a finished illustration should look like.

2. A master copy used to verify formatting, graphic consistency, and the copy to compare the original with any additions or deletions.

3. A reference source for the proofreader.

4. A pictorial or verbal illustration that identifies what elements go and where within a given medium.

Other terms

– raw layout or composition

– Graphic script

– draft

– draft

– “only for position”

The writer is rude

1. A document with directions of where, on the copy, the graphics should be placed.

2. The first cut from the writer to the graphics people on how the writer visualizes the design of the piece.

(As one writer put it, “Raw writers are something that graphic people turn into beautiful despite, not because of, rude saying.”)

The area of ​​agreement seems to be that writers should inform graphics people what kind of illustrations should be used and where they should be located. However, they don’t exactly agree on what to call what they do.

Here comes the advice

It may seem unnecessary to tell people in this business to ask questions if something is not completely clear. But, because many of us are human in other ways, we often have a natural human desire not to appear ignorant. So the client tells us something that we don’t fully understand, and instead of asking for clarification, we just nod and hope we can fake it.

It is not a good idea. With so many terms and so many interpretations of what they mean, we can’t afford to be shy. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in business. Old terms change their meaning and new terms come into use. If you don’t know, ask. It is better for the client to think you are ignorant at first rather than incompetent later.