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Subject:Tech. writing list From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:09:39 -0500
Diane Williams, responding to the quoted phrase "the
majority of technical communication in the workplace is
still paper-based", responded:
<<Whoa! Two thumbs down on that comment! This position
sounds like a copy editor!>>
And what would be wrong with that? <grins, dons editorial
hat, prepares for battle>
<<even most copy editors work online these days cos
they do their own corrections!>>
That's far too general a comment to be useful. My 4-year
membership on the copyediting-l list (ca. 3000 members)
tells me that paper-based editing is still predominant, and
by a large margin, particularly outside the high-tech area
and particularly for print production. There's a strong
trend towards online editing, but for anything involving
print production, the final editing (proofing, if you
prefer) is almost always on paper.
<<If I had to mark on paper every change I ever made on a
document and give it back to someone else to fix, I'd
still be working on last year's annual report!>>
I've never met anyone who could edit their own writing as
well as someone else can: you're simply too close to your
own material to be objective. ("Your" in the plural, since
I include myself in this.) That's why editors exist... to
give you an impartial viewpoint on your writing, and to
apply editing skills you may not have learned as a writer.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.
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