Keying Quick Tips
I did quite a bit of arbitration and review today. In light of what I saw, I offer the following tips and suggestions. These things might help your keying going a little smoother – and improve your accuracy all at the same time.
You don’t have to mark every data-less field blank. I reviewed several image sets where every single field that did not contain data was marked blank. That must have taken a lot of time and been pretty frustrating. There is no need to do this. Unless it is a required field (those fields that are highlighted pink), don’t worry about marking it blank if there is no data to be keyed into that field. Just skip right over it.
Use hotkeys. They really speed things up. My favorites are these:
*F3 – Copies what you keyed in the field directly above.
*If you wait until the end of an image to validate the fields that need to be checked, you can use F5 and F7 to quickly find and validate. This also allows you to validate common values in any one field all at once. Try it and let me know what you think.
Read the project instructions. This may sound pretty basic. And, there is a difference between not understanding instructions or interpreting them differently than someone else might and just plain not following directions. I can always tell when a keyer hasn’t even bothered to read the instructions. So, read the field helps as you go and always review the project page if you are keying a new project or have been away from a project for a while. (The fastest way to find the project page is to click on HELP | View More About This Project while you are keying a particular image set.)
By and large, most of what I arbitrated/reviewed looked terrific. These are just a few ideas that might speed up your keying and make it a little easier for you and our reviewers. Thank you all for your continued contribution.
Until next time – Happy Keying!
Thanks for this post! Especially the blanking fields mention: that is a personal pet peeve of mine when arbitrating/reviewing. Drives me crazy, and slows the process down. You are so right: the basic hint of reading the field helps would assist so many keyers, if they would just follow along field by field until comfortable with the project. I’ve found it makes a big difference when I start keying a new project.