TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
For the last couple of years, I've had the good fortune to pass a number of
my contract projects past a freelance editor. We sit down and talk about
the material, audience, style, language, conventions used in the document,
etc., anything that might make a difference in the review. The edits are
on-target, comments inserted about possible questionable items, and the
turnaround excellent. Since I have a wide variety of contract clients, and
no single stile for any of these projects, I've greatly appreciated having
access to a truly professional editor.
In most of my FT positions, writing and editing are all done by the writing
team, cross-editing each other's work, regardless of whether the project is
being written by a lone writer or a team of writers. This method has helped
to maintain a reasonably consistent voice for the material coming out of the
department. It also helps everyone in the group keep any proprietary
notions about project "ownership" in check.
On the downside, I once worked with an editor who felt the need to re-write
nearly every word (I think they must have gotten a discount on red pens
bought in bulk..!). Most of the comments were purely stylistic, and many
contradicted the conventions that had been adopted for the project. This
was not an editor I hired for future projects.
L
-----Original Message-----
From: Gilger.John
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 11:09 AM
A good editor _consistently_ enforces the agreed upon style manual and
proper usage. This is crucial when you have multiple authors contributing to
a document and a single voice is desired.
John
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Purchase RoboHelp X3 in April and receive a $100 mail-in
rebate, plus FREE RoboScreenCapture and WebHelp Merge Module.
Order here: http://www.ehelp.com/products/robohelp/
Help celebrate TECHWR-L's 10th Anniversary starting this month!
Check out the contests at http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/special/contests/
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday TECHWR-L....
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
