Flowchart vs Proofreading Marks
フローチャート / 校正記号
Flowchart comes from Diagrammatic Expression and Proofreading Marks from Symbol Systems. One is layout and the other technique. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Flowchart
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The Gilbreths invented this process diagram for work analysis. Its grammar of shapes gives a diamond to every decision and a rectangle to every process, and by way of programming it became the common language for thinking in steps.
Proofreading Marks
A sign language that corrects a typeset page through dialogue with its margins. The back-and-forth of deletion and stet, and the Western dele, were refined alongside the history of printing into an editing protocol that stands behind every typeset work, this dictionary included.
| Flowchart | Proofreading Marks | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1921– | 16th century– |
| Family | Diagrammatic Expression | Symbol Systems |
| Kind | Layout | Technique |
| Cues | A grammar of shapes / The decision diamond / Arrows of flow / Start and end terminals | Lines pairing text and margin / Deletion and restoration exchanges / Insertion and transposition signs / The hierarchy of red |
| Best used for | Getting a team to agree on a work procedure that branches · Surfacing branches and exceptions in a spec before implementation | Handing corrections in a form any typesetter applies the same way · Sorting overlapping instructions when several people mark one proof |
| Type | A question inside every diamond, a verb first sentence in rectangles | Corrections in red and queries in pencil, one color per person |
| Composition | Main path down one column, branches right and always rejoining | Lead lines run from the text out to the margin without crossing |
| Material | Each branch labeled with its answer, terminals only at both ends | Proofs printed at full size with margins wide enough to write in |
| Caution | Mixing diamonds and rectangles without respecting their meanings erases the line between decision and process, and readers guess. | Corrections written as prose instead of marks leave the extent of each change open to reading, and every pass introduces fresh errors. |