RE: An Editor's Role...To Punish the Writer?

["Bill Swallow" <wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com>]

You're taking it personally. Don't. Editors are often times terse and
will mark up every detail that doesn't conform to their standards.

You've only been there for five weeks. You will learn what the editors
want to see and over time the returned copy will be less and less red.

Having an editor is a damn good thing. Do your job (content creation)
and let them do theirs (editing).

Just out of curiosity, do others have issues with the editors? Have you
talked to others? Have you talked to the editors? Have you tried not to
let it bother you, and be civil about discussing the situation at work?
I'm sure they know you have a hard deadline to meet, and I'm sure they
know you only had a few weeks to write the manual. Talk to them. Play
nice. Be happy you have an editing staff.

B I L L   S W A L L O W
Information Design & Development Professional
tel/fax: 518.371.1867    bill_swallow -at- yahoo -dot- com
List Owner: HATT, WWP-Users, InFrame
Co-Moderator: SingleSourcing-Mgmt
WebWorks Wizard     Editor of InFrame Magazine

::: -----Original Message-----
::: I've been at this company for about 5 weeks, and apart from 
::: trying my darndest to meet next to impossible deadlines, 
::: I've had to deal with something that I've never had to deal 
::: with before. Our editors seem to have the attitude of: "We 
::: need to punish those naughty writers." And believe me, 
::: punish they do. For example, I recently received a document 
::: that not only had tons of "slash and burn" comments(and 
::: yes, I know my own weaknesses), but the tone was tense and 
::: terse. Also, our editors copy our managers, directors, and 
::: anyone else they feel should look over the writer's work..."Sigh"
::: 
::: I was under a complete illusion, that is I thought that 
::: editors where here to help and to point out 
::: inconsistencies, I was wrong! A writer must turn in a 
::: completely clean doc, and if they don't *&$#!!! Never mind 
::: that you may have had only a few weeks to write a 700 page 
::: manual from scratch. 
::: 
::: Here's what burns in my mind. If all the writers turned in 
::: completely clean docs, why have editors? 



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