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Subject:Re: More title questions From:Janice Gelb <Janice -dot- Gelb -at- Sun -dot- COM> To:Techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 27 Nov 2007 08:27:08 +1100
Raj Machhan wrote:
> Editor as a designation has its moorings in the print media. It is widely
> used to describe the pecking order in newspaper and magazines. So we have
> sub-editors, deputy editors, assistant editors, associate editors and so on,
> with the editor-in-chief as the top boss. However, the job profile of these
> editorial positions (excluding the overworked sub-editors, who lie at the
> bottom of the pile) also involves a fair amount of writing.
>
> I do not see any reason why we cannot apply the same structure, in a limited
> way, to positions in a Technical Communications set up. So instead of
> having designations such as "technical writer editor", or "technical writer
> and editor" we could simply put it as "technical editor", "sr technical
> editor" and so on. The designations need to be standardized to avoid
> confusion.
>
My job is that of a technical editor and although
I have written some of our internal tools documentation
manuals, that is not my primary job function. I imagine
the writers on here will object as much as I do to a
job title that implies that their primary function is
to edit! Editing and writing are different jobs with
different responsibilities and although often people
must do both in their working environment, that doesn't
mean that the titles can or should be combined.
I don't think that writers who occasionally do peer
editing to catch overlooked obvious errors because their
company does not employ editors should append "editor"
to their titles. You only need to invent a hyphenated
or slashed title if your editing responsibilities are
equal to or on the same professional standing as your
writing responsibilities.
-- Janice
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Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
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