Robin, I generally issue changes as a tracked document. Usually because the typo isn’t the only thing that will be getting changed. Also, because I tend to follow one method of issuing revised documents rather than confusing everyone with some changes as a narrative and others as tracked changes. If all the changes to the Project Manual were being done via narrative method, I would issue them that way.
Am I being to paranoid when it comes to fixing random typos and spacing when it comes to issued contract documents? I would never revise these things like Lisa describes without tracking them. These are contract documents at this point and if I was a contractor and found out that the architect was changing the contract documents without alerting me to the changes, I would be quite upset. It might only be a typo or spacing this time, but what has been changed previously without my knowledge? What might be changed in the future without my knowledge?
… Thoughts?
Anonymous, the only things I revise without tracking and calling people’s attention to them are the deletion of an extra space in a line or the change of a lower-case letter to be an upper-case letter. I don’t think you’re being paranoid.
Unless, of course, changing from lowercase to uppercase changes it to a defined term.
Speaking of letter case, it’s too bad CSI set the nasty precedent of over-capitalization, and that specification writers are inconsistent in their use of capitalized words.
Is There A Problem With Capitalization?
Seriously, I have been very careful over my career to selectively capitalize words for clarification; i.e., “Drawings” when referring to the Contract Drawings, but not shop drawings. Back to the 4 “C’s”. And that’s the bottom line. We are trying to communicate, after all.
I’ve issued corrections to the TOC as part of addenda before, and these days, it would probably be part of an RFI. I’ve had spec sections sent back because I had too many spaces after the terminating punctuation. This did not show up on an RFI, however.
Lately I have been seeing quotation marks misused quite often, even in text I am supposed to include in the specs, “apparently” to add emphasis.
Which led me to a pretty nice collection of these…
http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/