RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!

["Downing, David" <DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com>]

Holy misplaced modifier, Batman, you mean some technical writing
departments don't have editors?

I can't imagine working without an editor as a safety net -- although I
suppose everyone here who does contracting is in that position.

The only problem with having an editor is that when one editor id
replaced with another -- which has happened many times -- you have to
get used to the subjective preferences of the new editor.

When I first started here, I suffered a bit of culture shock concerning
dealing with an editor. When I do my own writing, I always wait until I
have what I consider a final draft to do the spell check because my
first drafts tend to be prolix, and I don't want to waste time
spell-checking a bunch of test that going to be cut. I didn't realize
that when you're working with an editor, you CAN'T expect them to live
with such an arrangement, and I caught it good.

-----Original Message-----
From: McLauchlan, Kevin [mailto:Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 9:47 AM
To: Downing, David; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ...
GEEZ!

Downing, David quoted an e-mail he sent to his SME:
[...]
>   Here's what I cam up with as the revised text for the [snip] Table.
> This is a kind of hybrid of what you sent me and what was there. Your
> text included some I important points I missed, such as [snip].
However,
> I couldn't use it verboten because it wasn't in line with our
department
> style. Furthermore, I thought some points were better placed in an
> introductory section, rather than in the discussion of the fields. I
> also felt that in some places where you referred to the [snip] code,
the
> reference should really be to the table entry, since we're talking
about
> the actually [snip] data, not just the code. I also had some passages
I
> really want to keep from my original. This has created some
redundancy,
> but I figured it would ultimately be up to our editor how to resolve
> this.
[...]

Editor?  You've got... EDITors?

Holy Moley, Batman!  Some of these techwriter people have... gasp!...
actual editors.

I need to sit down.

Wait.

I _am_ sitting.

I need to lie down.

 

 - Kevin
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