Explanation
Government is misspelled.
The name of the office is incorrect
here. It is correct in the assignment
sheet. You may not have picked up
on that—and I didn’t take off for it.
However, get in the habit of
checking names of agencies, offices,
departments, committees, etc.—
whether you’re writing for a
government agency, organization, or
corporation.
“Aviation Security” should be title
case, not all caps. Most of you did
that and some of you removed the
colon. I didn’t take off if you didn’t
strike the colon.
The word “Address” in the last part
of the title should be capped.
Marking
Report of the Government Accountability Office
(GAO)
AVIATION SECURITY Efforts to Measure Effectiveness
and Address Challenges
Ditto for “Technology” here. There’s
Statement of Cathleen A. Berrick, Director Homeland
little in the text to signal that the
committee name is wrong, especially
Security and Justice Issues, to the Committee on
because “science and technology”
are often used together in a phrase.
Commerce, Science and Transportation, U.S. Senate
(The original report makes this
mistake.) A careful editor who is not
familiar with the committee names
might check this one through
www.firstgov.gov, A-Z Agency
Index, Senate, or, alternatively,
through Federal Legislative, Senate.
“Aviation” is a topic of transportation,
not primarily of technology. But I
count this as a mistake—I just want
to get you used to the idea that you
have to look up what you are not
familiar with yourself.
A couple of people wanted to
change caps here to lower case—I
have no idea why. The directorate
and the committee names would be
proper nouns. A couple of people
wanted to add words or change the
punctuation before “U.S. Senate,”
but that would not be correct—this is
a Senate committee.
A few people wanted to change the
phrasing here. Be very careful—this
is a statement to a committee and
the wording may be important or
pro-forma. It’s OK to query, but don’t
make such a change on your own.
Everyone should have noticed the
misspelling of “Commerce.”
Different people had different ideas
about how to handle these “head-in”
phrases. Some of you made them
headings. Some of you chose to
leave them as head-in phrases and
change the colon to a period. Some
of you queried. I accepted any
formatting arrangement that was
consistent. However, don’t change
the wording!! If you use title case,
capitalize all the words except
conjunctions, pronouns, etc. (i.e.,
“this” should not be capped)
“2” should be changed to “two” here.
Check the CMS—in general,
numbers from zero to ten are written
out.
In dates, you do put a comma after
the year and before the rest of the
sentence. Some of you struck that
comma.
Misspellings in this paragraph:
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vulnerabilities
nation’s (possessive incorrectly
spelled as a plural)
spend (wrong tense)
its (possessive incorrectly
spelled as contraction for “it is”
with an apostrophe)
further (misspelled as “farther”)
Some people wanted to change the
noun phrase “threat objects” to
something else. Query if you think
you should, but don’t change that on
your own. Remember what your
instructions said—respect the fact
that the author has more experience
and knowledge of the topic/field/
lingo than you as copy editor do.
Add “(TSA)” after the agency is
spelled out here as the abbreviation
is used later.
Strike the second instance of
“efforts”—it’s a typo
Why GAO Did this Study
It has been two years since the attacks of
September 11, 2001, exposed vulnerabilities in the
nation’s aviation system. Since then, billions of
dollars have been spent on a wide range of
initiatives designed to enhance the security of
commercial aviation. However, vulnerabilities in
aviation security continue to exist. As a result,
questions have been raised regarding the
effectiveness of established initiatives in
protecting commercial aircraft from threat objects,
and whether additional measures are needed to
further enhance security. Accordingly, GAO was
asked to describe the efforts of the Transportation
Security Administration (TSA) to (1) measure the
effectiveness of its aviation security initiatives,
particularly its passenger screening program; (2)
implement a risk management approach to prioritize
In the numbered list, the parenthesis
is missing after “(2”
efforts and focus resources; and (3) address key
Also in the list, the punctuation
before the coordinating conjunction
“and” should be a semi-colon
because the list includes items with
commas. Therefore, the separating
punctuation between list items
challenges to further enhance aviation security.
should be semi-colons. A few people
wanted to change the second clause
in item (1) to a parenthetical. A
parenthetical usually indicates
additional, but not crucial,
information. The information after
the comma may be crucial, and
since the use of the comma and
semi-colon, is not incorrect, don’t
make that change.
The word “address” in number 3
should not be capped.
A couple of people wanted to
change the sentences that begin
with “However” by combining them
with the previous sentences. I can
see no reason for doing that. Also,
your instructions indicated that you
are not to change sentence
structures.
Misspellings in this paragraph
include:
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information
What GAO Found
TSA has implemented numerous initiatives to enhance
effectiveness
performance
Strike the paragraph break between
“on” and “passenger”—most of you
either did that or inserted a comment
to close up the paragraph—either
choice is fine.
A couple of people wanted to
change “Our” to something else or
delete it. “Our” is OK here (as “we” is
later) because the person who made
this statement is the Director of the
group that constitutes “us.”
Some people wanted to change the
“five” in “five-year plan” to a number.
Numbers zero through ten are
generally spelled out; in addition, the
adjective here should be
hyphenated.
Some people wanted to change
“exist” to exists.” Data can be
singular or plural, but in the absence
of a style guide, go with plural.
Some people wanted to remove the
“em” dash before such and insert a
comma. Since the use of the “em”
dash here is not incorrect, there’s no
reason to change it.
Most people decided to add (TIPS)
after the phrase “Threat Image
aviation security, but it has collected limited
information on the effectiveness of these
initiatives in protecting commercial aircraft. Our
recent work on passenger screening found that
little testing or other data exist that measures
the performance of screeners in detecting threat
objects. However, TSA is taking steps to collect
data on the effectiveness of its security
initiatives, including developing a five-year
performance plan detailing numerous performance
measures, as well as implementing several efforts
to collect ongoing performance data on the
effectiveness of passenger screening—such as
fielding the Threat Image Projection System (TIPS)
Projection System,” as I did. I would
also query to make sure that this is
an “official” name that requires
capitalization.
and increasing screener testing.
The noun + noun (risk+
management) before a noun
(approach) should be hyphenated—
strike the space and add a hyphen.
Each occurrence of “riskmanagement approach” should be
consistent as well.
Misspelled in this paragraph:
TSA has developed a risk-management approach to
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management
importance
In the first sentence, “aviation
security” should not be capped.
Strike the additional space before
“assets.”
Some people wanted to change the
word “criticality” to something else.
Here again is a situation where the
word is likely used with the security
community. Query, but don’t make
the change on your own. Though the
word might not be in Webster’s
Collegiate, it is in the OED—I didn’t
the more comprehensive Webster’s.
In the second to the last sentence,
“decision making” is a two word
noun phrase—strike the hyphen and
add a space.
In the last sentence, “summer”
should not be capped. You should
also add “of” between “summer” and
“2004.” Alternatively, remove “the”
before summer—“approach by
summer 2004.
Most people indicate in some way—
either by comment or change, that
the centered portion of this
paragraph needed to be left justified.
A few people wanted to change
“programmatic” to “program.” Don’t.
“These” in the second sentence
should be capped.
The second sentence here is long
and it is not parallel. Most people
picked up on a problem but were’nt
sure how to fix it. You have to query
this because the problem with
parallelism occurs at “air cargo”—it’s
probably supposed to be air cargo
security or screening, something like
prioritize efforts, assess threats, and focus
resources related to its aviation security
initiatives as we previously recommended, but has
not yet fully implemented this approach. A riskmanagement approach is a systematic process to
analyze threats, vulnerabilities, and the
criticality (or relative importance) of assets to
better support key decisions. TSA is developing and
implementing both a criticality and a vulnerability
assessment tool to provide a basis for risk-based
decision making. TSA is currently using some
components of these tools and plans to fully
implement its risk management approach by the
summer of 2004.
TSA faces a number of programmatic and management
challenges as it continues to enhance aviation
security. These include the implementation of the
new computer-assisted passenger prescreening
system, as well as strengthening baggage screening,
that. Also, read this sentence
carefully. There are actually two
main items here and you can identify
them by “implementation” and
“strengthening.” Only one thing is
being implemented—“the new
computer-assisted passenger
prescreening system”—but several
thing are being strengthened.
Prescreening is one word—“pre” is a
prefix.
Misspelled in this paragraph:
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capital (not capitol—here’s one
spell-check won’t help you with)
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challenges
In the last sentence, “securityenhancing” is hyphenated and there
is an “em” dash after technologies.
Some people wanted to change to a
comma, but “em” dash isn’t wrong.
“Inline” is one word.
airport perimeter and access controls, air cargo,
and general aviation security. TSA also must manage
the costs associated with aviation security and
address human capital challenges, such as sizing
its workforce as efficiency is improved with
security—enhancing technologies—including the
integration of explosive detection systems into
inline baggage-handling systems.
Some people wanted to connect this
Further challenges in sizing its workforce may be
sentence with the previous
paragraph. That’s probably correct,
encountered if airports are granted permission to
though I didn’t mark off if you left it
as a separate paragraph.
opt out of using federal screeners.
Some people wanted to change
“sizing” to “resizing” or “down sizing.”
We don’t know that down would be
the way the sizing goes; “resizing”
may not be appropriate in this
context either—query if you want,
but don’t change it on your own.
Don’t change “opt” to “option.” The
expression is “opt out.”
GAO should be capped here.
The word “federal” is used in a
generic sense here—do not cap.
Misspelled in this paragraph:
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separate
What GAO Recommends
In prior reports and testimonies, GAO has made
numerous recommendations to strengthen aviation
security and to improve the management of federal
aviation security organizations. We also have
ongoing reviews assessing many of the issues
addressed in this testimony and will issue separate
reports on these areas at a later date.