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You're right about the time it takes to "edit" some of these documents that just need to be cleaned up (someone once told me that a document just had to be "tarted up"). This is especially true when the writer has used their own standards and style conventions. I hate it when the writer has put all field and button names, messages etc. in quotation marks, when the document style guide only allows quotation marks in specific situations (or not at all), meaning the person editing the document has to go through and remove them all, and then insert whatever the standard is, e.g. Bold for field names.
Ron Hearn
Documentation Specialist
Central 1 Credit Union
1441 Creekside Drive
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
V6J 4S7
rhearn -at- central1 -dot- com
Tel: 604.730.6391
Fax: 604.730-7792
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+rhearn=cucbc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+rhearn=cucbc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Lauren
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 1:09 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Writing vs. Editing
This question really depends on the context of "edit."
I have had people tell me, "We did most of the writing, it just needs to be cleaned up," so I assume I will just need to edit a document. When I get the document, I see that it needs a rewrite and many workarounds just to conform to the standard required of the document. In these cases, it takes me two or three times as long to "edit" the document than it would have to write the document from scratch.
Editing the work of a bad writer or, worse, a non-writer who thinks they can write is cumbersome and tedious. Editing my own work or the work of a good writer is no easier or harder than writing, since I use the same skills for both.
On 9/24/2014 7:38 AM, M -dot- Vina-Baltsas -at- mindray -dot- com wrote:
> In general, do you find it easier to write user materials or to edit
> someone else's work?
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