# Redacted portions, a redacted report, to redact a report



## Ricardo Tavares

Do you guys think it's best to use "redact a report" or to "write a report" in a legal context ?

Thank you all.


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## bibliolept

To redact can also mean to edit or abridge, so I would choose based on that.


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## Matching Mole

The Oxford English Dictionary marks this as "rare". This would be particularly in reference to British English, and in that, at least, I would agree. I have never heard it used in a legal context, and I work in law. Of course, it may be used in other English-speaking regions.


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## cuchuflete

It is less rare in AE, but still not common outside of legal matters, especially legislation, and some branches of academics.  It has two broad categories of meaning.  The more common one involves editing, and the other refers to framing something in writing.  I wouldn't use it with _report. _


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## konungursvia

In law, I would say redact, which sounds smart as it is French, as is all legal language except estoppel.


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## cuchuflete

konungursvia said:


> In law, I would say redact, which sounds smart as it is French, as is all legal language except estoppel.


 A mild exaggeration?  What's FR about _writ_ of _habeas corpus_?


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## DPELAYO

if you doubt which one to select to write or to redact a report, thinking in a logic way I would use _*Write a report*_, its the most useful way to express how to make a report.
Re..


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## bibliolept

DPELAYO said:


> if you doubt which one to select to write or to redact a report, thinking in a logic way I would use _*Write a report*_, its the most useful way to express how to make a report.
> Re..



In other words, if you mean write, write write.


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## Zvonda

Hello,
I am not sure I understand the highlighted part in the sentence below. Can you help?

_This document is a true and correct copy of the recorded document *minus any redacted portions.*_
Does it mean "without the parts that were taken out for some reason"? If this is so, it seems that it can no longer be a true and correct copy.


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## Cagey

Zvonda said:


> [*....*]
> Does it mean "without the parts that were taken out for some reason"? If this is so, it seems that it can no longer be a true and correct copy.



Yes, it does mean that if any parts were redacted, they will not be there.  The claim is that what remains will be true and correct - that is, unchanged.  Whether you would consider the resulting a "true and correct copy" may be a matter of definition. It would depend, I suppose, partly on how much was redacted and how much it would have changed your understanding of what was left.


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## panjandrum

I find this sentence confusing.
Does it mean that any passage that was subject to change from the first draft has  been omitted?
Alternatively, does it mean that any passage that was drafted for inclusion in the document has been omitted?

Put another way, what meaning of _redact _has been used here?
The sentence does not make sense with either of the WR dictionary definitions, or the two in the OED:
*4.* In modern use: 
*a.* To draw up, frame (a statement, decree, etc.).  
*b.* To put (matter) into proper literary form; to work up, arrange, or edit.


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## Cagey

I'm sorry.  I assumed that "redacted" here means that sections of a completed document were blocked out or omitted for security reasons or to protect privacy.  It is a common meaning of _redact _in the US.  Is it not used this way in BrE?

Here is an example of _redacted_ as a description:The agency now says it is willing to accept the paperwork with the details about the crime *redacted*, said TN Prakasha, deputy director for the Division of ...._ Sun-Sentinel,_ FL ​Here is an example of it in practice:I am the working poor - owning a small yard maintenance business in [*redacted*] with my husband - earning enough to "get by". No more. *... *More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part I._  OpEdNews, _PA
​


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## xqby

Cagey said:


> I'm sorry. I assumed that "redacted" here means that sections of a completed document were blocked out or omitted for security reasons or to protect privacy. It is a common meaning of _redact _in the US.


 
I agree, this is how I interpreted the sentence as well. It doesn't appear in any general dictionaries such as American Heritage, which I find confusing. In a dictionary of legal terms the meaning is presented as unambiguous though.


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## panjandrum

I was, to be frank, making a point - sorry about that.

_Redact _is a word I have rarely come across "in the wild".
When presented with this question it seemed sensible to check the definitions, which I assumed would include something along the lines that Cagey and xqby have indicated together with the others.  But to my surprise, the general dictionaries don't seem to accommodate the "deleted" or "witheld" definitions.

Is it based on a presumption that the editing process involved deletion of content, not changing?


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## Cagey

I apologize for having stepped on your point. (Ouch!)

We see "redacted" a lot in the wild here.  Citizens are supposed to have access to certain government records, but often the records they receive are "heavily redacted".  Such records become the subject of hot political debates about the motivation for the redaction, government secrecy, and so on.

Edit: Yes, it is based on the assumption that this is deletion of the content from a completed document, not editing.  
Edit on edit: Deletion may give the wrong idea: redacted text is _withheld._  The point is that it still exists on the original document.  It is not lost.


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## Loob

Cagey said:


> I assumed that "redacted" here means that sections of a completed document were blocked out or omitted for security reasons or to protect privacy. It is a common meaning of _redact _in the US. Is it not used this way in BrE?


Seemingly it is - I found "redaction" in this guidance on the Freedom of Information Act, for example.

I imagine it's a technical term in BrE, though; I for one have never heard it. I assumed when I read the OP that "redacted" was a mis-translation

Yet again I learn something new from WRF!


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## panjandrum

Searching my personal archives I found one example of redact.





> Information can be provided in the form of a copy of a document, a summary or a *redacted *version of a document.
> *redacted* -- the condition of a document that has been edited for a specific purpose.


Not surprisingly, this is taken from a document associated with the implementation of the UK Freedom of Information Act.
Here, redact has been used in a way that is entirely consistent with the dictionary definitions.  Redacted does not mean deleted, it means changed.

The definition quoted by xqby seems to me to be a particular, narrow, interpretation of the general term.  The definition seems to draw a particular conclusion from genuine examples of the use of the term.

Should we rely on information from http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/?
Is it one isolated error?


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## Cagey

Here is an image of a "heavily redacted" document, from the days before computers, and as they have always been described to me. Click

(It's a picture of a text, with large sections blacked out with a marker.)  

I am reminded by the context that such a redacted document may be called a _redact._


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## xqby

Aha, a general dictionary with the deletion meaning. 



panjandrum said:


> The definition quoted by xqby seems to me to be a particular, narrow, interpretation of the general term. The definition seems to draw a particular conclusion from genuine examples of the use of the term.


 
Well, it's a legal dictionary. That the interpretation is narrow makes sense; it is how the term is used in law, not in general English (or in other jargon-heavy contexts). I was just trying to say that the definition offered there is the one I am most familiar with.


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## panjandrum

Thank you, I recall what we were told about redaction.
In the days before electronic communication (not very long ago) documents were disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act by creation of photocopies.
Any document might be disclosed in full or in an edited form - a redacted form.
An edited, or redacted, document could only be a version of the original with some elements blacked out in the manner depicted in Cagey's example.
It is entirely understandable that the term _redacted _should then have come to be equivalent to _deleted_.


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## Cagey

panjandrum said:


> [....]
> It is entirely understandable that the term _redacted _should then have come to be equivalent to _deleted_.



With the _caveat_ that it is deleted only in the copy -- and the copy should carry indications that something has been left out.  The original document stays intact.


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## Forero

Is _redacted_ newspeak for _censored_?  I would have preferred to let _redacted_ mean "redacted" and call this "censored".


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## Cypherpunk

Redacted _can_ mean censored (in the all-encompassing, completely-change-the- original-meaning sense), but from my time in the military, it often simply meant one of two things: personal identification information was removed from a document, or details of a sensitive (secret) nature were edited/removed. The purpose was not to hide the meaning but to protect privacy or secrets. Much recent criticism of the US government has revolved around where redaction stops and censorship starts...


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## ewie

I was watching the BBC news a while ago and they showed pictures of some report or other which had been very heavily censored ~ it looked like this only ten times worse.  Anyway, the voice-over called it a _heavily *redacted*_ piece of text ...

... and I thought, "A _what_?!"

Is anyone else familiar with this bit of jargon ... if indeed it is jargon and not the flight-of-fancy of whoever wrote that bit of news?


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## panjandrum

Redact is the term of choice in the context ewie is referring to.
When public officials process requests for information in the context of the Freedom of Information Act, amongst other things, they black out, or redact, stuff before release.

Examples of this usage abound (if you happen to be wandering in the right circles)._
A major issue in released documentation is government "redaction" of certain passages deemed applicable to the Exemption section of the FOIA._
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States)
_
Information which should not be released can be deleted from any document       the other contents of which will be released, for instance by 'black-penning'       the information to be protected. If an applicant has requested all the       information in a particular document but it is necessary to redact some       of that information because it is exempt, you should make it clear that       redactions have taken place, and cite the relevant exemption as to why       the information has been redacted._
http://www.foi.gov.uk/guidance/proguide/chap08.htm

Did I mention that I was, at one time, a public official responsible for dealing with Freedom of Information issues?
It's jargon.


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## ewie

Well I'll be blowed, Panjo, _I never knew that_.  Seriously, today was the first time I've ever heard that term.
So ... erm ... it _is _jargon then?  Why (the BBC) not just call it _censored_ for us mortal plebs?

No matter how far back you stand to peer at it, it _is_ just 'censoring', isn't it?


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## JulianStuart

Having been involved in some lengthy legal proceedings in the US (as a witness, sometimes even a so-called "expert witness") I am unfortunately familiar with information obtained through the Freedom of Information act.  It always has a bunch of black marks or white erasures in it, sometimes so _heavily redacted_ that only one or two words remained on some pages.  This is the only sense I've ever heard for the word redacted.  Until this thread I was unaware of another meaning. I'm glad I participate


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## ewie

One of the pages shown on that report, JS, was _entirely_ black-marked ~ the only white parts were the headers, footers, and margins


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## JulianStuart

In my case, some of the information in the document was susceptible to the demands of the FOIA, while some remained proprietary information (belonging to a competitor company) that was not covered by the act and was therefore still protected - and therefore could be redacted.  A different concept from "censorship"


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## panjandrum

ewie said:


> Well I'll be blowed, Panjo, _I never knew that_.  Seriously, today was the first time I've ever heard that term.
> So ... erm ... it _is _jargon then?  Why (the BBC) not just call it _censored_ for us mortal plebs?
> 
> No matter how far back you stand to peer at it, it _is_ just 'censoring', isn't it?


Certainly not!!!!!!

It results from a concerned scrutiny of the information that is to be released and the removal of anything that is deemed to be inappropriate for release.

For example, we would have redacted anything the release of which would have contravened the Data Protection Act or anything that would have compromised security.

One man's considerate discretion is another man's censorship.


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## Loob

ewie said:


> Well I'll be blowed, Panjo, _I never knew that_. Seriously, today was the first time I've ever heard that term.
> So ... erm ... it _is _jargon then? Why (the BBC) not just call it _censored_ for us mortal plebs?
> 
> No matter how far back you stand to peer at it, it _is_ just 'censoring', isn't it?


Fret not, ewe-babes. I learnt "redact" within these august portals only two or three months ago

I suspect it's used precisely to avoid the overtones of _censored_.



EDIT: Ah, I see panj has given you a more expert answer....

EDIT2: Forgot to answer the original question. Use "write a report", Ricardo Tavares


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## ewie

Loob said:


> Fret not, ewe-babes


Oh I wasn't exactly fretting, Mrs.L ~ I was just a bit taken abaft to have this unfamiliar word* thrown in my face ... _which felt like a mealy-mouthed euphemism for 'censored'_.

*Mind you, I probably wasn't nearly as abaft-taken as would have been viewers unfamiliar with (e.g.) Spanish/French in which the word just means 'edited'.





Loob said:


> Forgot to answer the original question. Use "write a report", Ricardo Tavares


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## Loob

JulianStuart said:


> A different concept from "censorship"


It doesn't seem to me to be a _very_ different concept, JS. _Censorship_ and _redaction_ (?is that the right noun?) involve the same activities, and - presumably - similarly worthy motives. 

It's just the present-day connotations that are different - no?


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## panjandrum

In the context of the Freedom of Information Act, there are very clear and specific rules on what may be redacted.
That doesn't mean that such rules are applied as intended by the law-makers.
I guess that ewie is referring to the recent release of information about UK MP's expenses.  It seems to me, one who is totally ignorant of the subject area, that those responsible for responding to the FOI requests have been inappropriately scrupulous in their application of the FOI's stipulations on redaction.


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## ewie

I _think_ it was something to do with the UK secret service and torture and that.  I wasn't really paying attention until that word ...


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## Loob

Ricardo Tavares said:


> Do you guys think it's best to use "redact a report" or to "write a report" in a legal context ?
> 
> Thank you all.


I repeat - I can be terribly boring sometimes - use "write" rather than "redact"....


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## JulianStuart

Indeed Mrs. Loob.  
 The deletion of certain information can be for "protection of X" where X could be state secrets, national security, proprietary information etc. could be called censorship,  mechanically the same as redaction, and with similar "worthy" motive.  I was thinking more of "moral censorship" in one of the early meanings of the word.  

Roman Censors had two functions 1) counting the number of people and 2) supervising their "morals" (from OED)  Redaction is different from some types of censorship, e.g. by those who would control the morals of the masses.


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## siw

I also just heard a radio report on recent CIA documents having been "redacted" in reference to the blacking out of content.  Looks like "to redact" in american english may enjoy more of a denoted use to mean cut out, remove, hack, whereas redactar in Spanish would seem to be employed more often to signify origination and composition rather than to remove or to cover up.   Similar root word in both instances but each language group took the moniker into different directions.  Not the first time that's happened. 
[It is really curious for those of us who work in the "redaction department" of a journalistic entity. I don't consider as "censorship" the work accomplished by our "redaction" section (ha!)!]


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## UUBiker

I have a nifty black wax crayon for "redacting" things at work (normal markers will not fully cover up text when photocopied, but black wax will)-- "redacting" is only a synonym for "writing" insofar as both actions involve placing marks on a page.  At the risk of splitting hairs, "censuring," I believe, is when you tell someone *else* what not to publish.  We redact things such as, say, employees' social security numbers and home addresses as a matter of course.  I don't suppose, however, that black marks on a page are ever going to look anything other than suspicious.  The government is required to place next to each black box one or more of the statutory citations to 11 portions of FOIA (foy--ahh) which it is invoking (number 10, for example, requires the government not to publish the location of wells; don't ask me why).  When the government is sued by those who sought disclosure, the "redacted" documents, with the so-numbered redacted sections, are typically shown to a judge in camera along with the originals who decides if the "redactions" have been properly made (by releasing too little, or too much, when the suit is brought by those persons whose private information is kept by the government, and who do not want their information released-- a so-called reverse FOIA claim-- think about, say, criminal records or your tax returns).


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## ewie

ewie said:


> I was watching the BBC news a while ago and they showed pictures of some report or other which had been very heavily censored ~ it looked like this only ten times worse.  Anyway, the voice-over called it a _heavily *redacted*_ piece of text ...
> 
> ... and I thought, "A _what_?!"


I was watching the BBC news last night or the night before and the same situation came up again ... and this time the reporter just said _blacked out_ or something equally recognizable.


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## Cagey

Here is an earlier thread on the same subject << now merged with this thread.>>

There, too, it seems that Americans are more familiar with this use of _redacted_ than are speakers of BrE.


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## pickarooney

ewie said:


> *Mind you, I probably wasn't nearly as abaft-taken as would have been viewers unfamiliar with (e.g.) Spanish/French in which the word just means 'edited'.



"Edited" in the sense of compiled, modified or printed? 

"Edit" is a minefield of a word particularly when translating it. Also, I'm not sure about Spanish, but there's no verb 'rédacter' in French. The people who redact, _rédigent_.


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## Nunty

One of the hats I wear at work has to do with personnel management. I am compiling a pamphlet of laws, policies and procedures for the heads of the various institutions our organization maintains. I was also asked to make a "redacted version of the pamphlet" for the employees, a version which would contain only the information that concerns them directly.

My second reaction to "redacted version" (the first was a shudder) was that this is just a currently popular buzzword that means nothing more than "abridged" or "edited". Am I right, or is there more to "redacted"?


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## mrcassini

Redacted simply means "edited".


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## Copyright

One of the meanings of *redact*, beyond simple editing, is removing sensitive information before publication, which in this case would be things that managers need to know but perhaps not employees.


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## Nunty

Thanks, everyone. Copyright, I think you have probably nailed it.


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## He-Rooster

Is there a chance that "*redacted*" has the same meaning that "*obscured*" in the case of crossing out in ink some words that must remain confidential?


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## Cagey

He-Rooster said:


> Is there a chance that "*redacted*" has the same meaning that "*obscured*" in the case of crossing out in ink some words that must remain confidential?


Does this question relate to a specific context?  If so, you should include the text you are asking about, (or a paraphrase of it) so that we can be sure we are giving the answer that applies.

In general, I would say that _redacted_ text (text that is being withheld) may be _obscured_ by marking it out in ink.  This would mean that the words were completely covered by a broad stroke of ink, rather than struck through with lines that left the letters still partially visible. To me, _redaction_ is the process of withholding the information, _obscuring_ is one method of doing it.


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## Espero Antos

Great Julian Stuart, thank you so much for redirecting me to a previous thread on this topic! Once again WordReference proves an invaluably useful tool, up to date to the latest developments of language usage (not yet recorded by self-styled state-of-the-art, reference dictionaries)... Oxbridge, Webster, Collins & Co., do take note: you are lagging behind!


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## sound shift

This thread deals with the matter very thoroughly and I have nothing to add, other than the fact that the word "redact" appeared in the British press this week. It is clear from the context that the word means exactly what those foreros claiming familiarity with it say it means earlier in this thread. If like me you had not seen the word in print before, you may wish to proceed to the penultimate paragraph of this piece by Timothy Garton Ash for the 'Comment' section of 'The Guardian', from which we learn that "Late last year, the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity asked the journals Science and Nature to redact details of a study about an easily transmitted form of the H5N1 virus, or bird flu, for fear it could be misused by bioterrorists."


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