Technical documents provide information that readers need to make decisions or complete tasks. Technical editing ensures that this information is presented in a way that facilitates the reader's understanding. Technical editors offer suggestions for improvement in design of both content and layout and therefore work with the document in both early and late stages.
#22633
Few people choose editing as a profession. More often, the profession of editing chooses them.In one sense, everyone edits. Writers who revise even one word in a manuscript have started editing their work. A speaker who pauses in mid-sentence to find a better word or phrase, a manager who revises an instruction or restates a policy, a secretary who clarifies a sentence in someone else's dictation is, for the moment, an editor. In another sense, editing is a highly specialized profession. It has only one purpose: to improve the quality of communication. Most editors deal with words; some work with pictures, design, production, or management.
#22896
The Society of Editors (Victoria)
The Society of Editors (Victoria) Inc. is an organisation for people who are engaged professionally in editing for publication. It has more than 300 members, including in-house and freelance editors.
#10658
Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders
The SFEP is a non-profit-distributing organization with the twin aims of: promoting high editorial standards; achieving recognition of the professional status of its members. There are currently around 1400 members (mostly in the UK), providing a wide range of freelance editorial services to the publishing community and beyond. Corporate membership is also available to publishing companies.
#29430
Sometimes Playing Dumb Makes Things Work Better
I've learned how to forget for a period of time that I know almost as much as my authors about their subject, and this lets me play dumb and trip over things that the author's peers and I could both figure out with a little work--or a lot of work, occasionally. Once I understand why I tripped over a particular wording, I can figure out how to fix it so that nobody else, even if they really were as idiotic as I sometimes pretend to be.
#15197
Alroy, Intercom's advice columnist, weighs in on how many spaces to place after a period, and counsels a manager whose company is unable to pay top dollar for consultants.
Alroy, Faye. Intercom (2002). Articles>Editing
#10179
Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques
The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques is an interdisciplinary community interested in research, technology, and applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Members include researchers, developers and users from the technical, academic, business, and art communities. SIGGRAPH provides information to the computer graphics community through its annual conference, publications and the SIGGRAPH Video Review. SIGGRAPH members receive the quarterly newsletter Computer Graphics, the SIGGRAPH annual conference publications which consist of the proceedings (printed, CD-ROM and videotape), electronic art and animation catalog (printed and CD-ROM) and the conference abstracts and applications (printed and CD-ROM). A 'Lite' membership is available at a reduced rate that includes the quarterly newsletter but not the conference publications package. A 'Plus' option is also available with significant discounts on the proceedings of other computer graphics conferences and workshops. All members receive discounts to the annual conference, publications and other SIGGRAPH sponsored events, and complimentary access to the graphics publications in the ACM Digital Library.
#14759
Special Needs: Editing Tables and Graphics 
Hart explains the difficulties of editing tables and graphics on-screen.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2002). Articles>Editing
#21858
Lossy or lossless? No, the subject isn't baseball, it's file compression. Understanding it can improve your image.
Fleishman, Glenn. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Graphic Design>Image Editing
#10716
Editing and proofreading symbols are used by editors and others for indicating text changes. The symbols are universally understood among most writers, editors, proofreaders, text processors, and printers.
#14104
STC Indexing Special Interest Group
The Indexing SIG will enhance members' analytical skills, promote quality and usability concepts, encourage retrievability techniques that increase customer satisfaction, and promote communication between STC members and the indexing community. The Indexing SIG will also give STC members access to information and resources that help them improve their indexing skills and the usability of their documentation products.
#14092
STC Technical Editing Special Interest Group
The Technical Editing SIG focuses on issues related to technical editing. Our goal is to provide editing resources and leadership for STC members who want to learn more about technical editing and its important contributions to our profession.
#25114
Strategies for Peer-Reviewing and Team-Writing
When you peer-review other people's writing, remember above all that you should consider all aspects of that writing, not just--in fact, least of all--the grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
McMurrey, David A. Illuminati Online (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Editing>Writing
#29884
Strategies for Working with Authors: How to Foster Productive Author-Editor Relationships
Learning to be a good editor requires much more than learning the rules of grammar, diction, spelling, and punctuation. Editing requires a complex skill set, including an eye for document design, an awareness of how different document features affect readability, an understanding of how to manage the document development process, including the role of an editor in that process, and the ability to work with a variety of not just documents, but the creators of those documents--the authors. This paper discusses strategies to enable editors to develop productive, collaborative relationships with authors. Within the context of a capstone course in technical editing, students describe various strategies they used to develop editing plans, negotiate levels of edit and conduct editor/author conferences, and how they managed editing projects involving real authors and their documents.
Grady, Helen M., Ericka T. Mayweather, Brian W. Davis and Andrea M. LaPlume. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Editing>Collaboration
#14413
Style Guide Revision: Message and Medium - A Case Study
Creating and revising a corporate style guide is a matter of convincing, as well as showing the users, that publishing documents in a consistent manner is cost-effective. The second edition of the Style Guide for the Savannah River Site reflects the many changes that occurred in the world and at this government site in the last six years. Because documents are processed by individuals using desktop publishing products, this style guide edition was created with input from and for the individual user Topics covered the same ground as the previous edition (i.e., procedures, papers, reports, manuals, correspondence), but one major change was placing the style guide on the site intranet to reduce paper distribution and providing information on electronic publishing.
Phillips, Amy G. and Cathie Witker. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Editing>Style Guides>Case Studies
#29256
Substantive and Technical Editing: How Far Do You Go?
Authors who cannot answer queries create a barrier to improvement of manuscripts. Some authors resist the idea that their papers might need major changes. Other authors depend on the editor to make changes that the author can and should make. Language barriers can require creative solutions. Also, there is the question of how far to go as an editor in reframing a report (for example, should an editor reframe the purpose of a paper?) and in correcting an author's errors (for example, a claim of a trend when none is shown).
Hoppenrath, Margaret, Joan C. Hinchcliffe, Sharon Naron and Arkady Mak. CBE Views (1998). Articles>Editing>Technical Editing
#14772
Substantive Editing: Break It to Them Gently
Emphasizing the need for clear, polite communication between editors and authors, Hart demonstrates how editors should address imprecise wording, ineffective organization, and other substantive issues.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2002). Articles>Editing
#30584
Substantive Editing: Building the Logical Inner Sanctum
The inner sanctum of any good piece of writing is a solid, logical core. To produce the logical core, a writer frequently has to synthesize complex information, which means understanding it well enough to transform often muddled and random detail to clear and easy to apprehend expression. Synthesis of new information, being one of the most difficult thinking skills, can require more of a writer than the writer has time for. An editor's job, from the first draft to the last, is to help build the writing around an appropriate logical core. In this workshop, participants will practice techniques that editors can use to make sure that they find, or help the writer find, the core - what users need to know, and the order in which they need to know it. Participants will form groups to scan a document, using a checklist of tips to spot problems in the document's structure. Each group will report its findings to the larger group.
Nahigian, Alma L. and Jacquelyn Malone. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Editing>Information Design>Writing
#23547
Substantive Editing: The Art of the Alchemist
For any number of reasons — and it's often not the writer's fault — an editor is asked to help transform a document. Water into wine, a specification into a user document. The editor job, from the first draft to the last, is to ensure that the Writing meets the user's need, which sometimes means the document goes through a transformation: lead into gold.
Malone, Jacquelyn and Alma L. Nahigian. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Editing
#24910
Substantive Editing: With an Eye on the User
This workshop focuses on substantive editing with workshop materials that show fast and easy ways to analyze a piece of writing, especially writing that needs the concentrated effort of both the editor and the writer to turn it into a usable document. The workshop is practical in its focus providing tips, checklists, and techniques for approaching material that needs a heavy substantive edit.
Malone, Jacquelyn and Alma L. Nahigian. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Editing>Technical Editing
#29689
Syntax or Sin Tax: Which Should an Editor Choose?
Proficiency and accuracy are necessary to edit technical communication, but both can be diminished by the conflict of standards and rules from respected sources. This difficulty is further compounded with the differing expectations of audiences, employers, and companies. To resolve potential problems, editors need to refresh their basic skills through workshops, professional journal articles, and the study of updated authoritative sources. Editors then need to address their audience expectations by developing appropriate style guides. By focusing upon the needs of the audience, editors draw upon a variety of sources, some of which may not agree upon the same standards and rules. In such cases, the editor may also break or bend rules to achieve the consistent, accurate communications that best serve the individual audience.
Ball, Valerie M. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Editing>Technical Editing>Standards
#24299
The Tantalizing Technology of English
The English language is tantalizing and altogether fascinating.
#15202
Teaching a Workshop on Sentence Diagramming
Demonstrates how sentence diagramming can be an effective writing tool and offers tips on how it should be taught.
Jennings, Ann S. Intercom (2002). Articles>Education>Editing>Grammar
#13476
Reviews of the literature have shown that academics and practicing editors and writers differ in their view of the editing and revision processes; furthermore, research (in progress) suggests that authors of technical writing texts have been slow to incorporate a process model of writing and revision into their texts, especially a model making full use of advances in computer-assisted writing. This demonstration is an attempt to improve teachers’ and trainers’ abilities to teach revision in a computer-assisted writing environment.
Nerd, Roland D. and Michelle J. Moosally. STC Proceedings (1993). Resources>Bibliographies>Editing>Online
#32043
Tech Writers, Grammar, and the Prescriptive Attitude
Prescriptive grammar is useful for teaching English as a second language, but it has little value for the practicing writer. Clinging to it may provide emotional security, but only at the expense of making writing harder than it needs to be. The culture-wide devotion to it will not be changed in a moment. But conscientious writers can at least change their own habits, and make life easier for themselves.
Byfield, Bruce. TECHWR-L (2008). Articles>Writing>Editing>Technical Writing
#27357
Technical and Professional Editing
In this class, you will learn how to edit technical documents, from proofreading for errors at the surface to ensuring that the document contains appropriate content, organization, and visuals for its audiences. Students will also learn how to use traditional editing marks, editing functions within word processors, and principles of layout and design.
Eaton, Angela. Texas Tech University (2006). Academic>Courses>Technical Editing
