The Official Publication of the STC Technical Editing SIG
By Michelle Corbin
(originally published in 2013, republished with permission in 2019)
After reading a grammar textbook, I have been pondering how well technical editors need to know grammar. How much grammar must they know to edit the information, but also how much must they know to help their writers improve their writing ability?
Continue reading “The Best of Corrigo: Technical Editors Do Not Need To Be Grammarians”
As the official publication of the STC Technical Editing SIG, Corrigo is full of useful information for technical editing practitioners.
But the articles in Corrigo, however helpful they are, are really only a one-way street from the author to you, and not all topics are as cut-and-dried as we would like them to be.
Wouldn’t it be great if, after you read something really interesting, you could continue the discussion with the author? And wouldn’t it be even better if other technical editing practitioners could join in? And wouldn’t it be awesome if all of you could then put into practice what you’d discussed, making your professional lives that much better?
To enable back-and-forth discussion between peers about hot-button topics that affect the world of technical editing, we are introducing a new feature – Conversation Starter!
This new feature will present thought-provoking articles about things that are dear to the hearts of technical editing practitioners.
Because the goal of this feature is to start conversations around these issues, it’s important that we enable you to “have your say” in a way that maximizes the give-and-take needed for a true discussion:
To make it easier for you to find these articles again in the future, they will be tagged with a Conversation Starter tag, and the titles prefaced with the same phrase.
If you’d like to submit an article to start a conversation about something you feel passionate about OR if you want to continue a conversation that’s already started, please send an email to editor@stc-techedit.org and tell us about it.
(Originally published in 2000; republished with minor changes in 2019)
Whether you are a full-time editor or simply someone who believes in the importance of editorial vigilance, you have a lot to gain by becoming a visible leader. Even if you’re not in a supervisory position, taking an active role in stressing the value of high-quality editing can improve your company’s products, boost the reputation of the editing profession, and often provide some payoffs in your career as well.
Depending on your company’s environment, not all of the following suggestions will be appropriate for you. However, I hope you can glean some ideas about how to unleash your leadership potential.
Continue reading “Best of Corrigo: The Editor as Leader – How Expanding Your Role Can Boost Your Profession, Your Employer, and Your Career”On their site, authors Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman discuss grammar, etymology, usage, and more in a very clever and entertaining way. Their blog, Q&A, and myths sections are full of useful information for technical editing practitioners, who sometimes need refresher courses (or source material to convince doubters!) about the rules of the English language.
A company must communicate with its customers; however, whether these communications are valuable to the audience is another question.
A company’s content is often influenced by the individuals who internally surround the document rather than the external target audience, which forces technical communicators to sometimes release content that does not accurately reflect or meet readers’ needs. This type of content creation process can lead companies to measure their content’s success by how it satisfies internal (often managerial) opinions rather than how well the document fulfills the content needs of the intended audience.
Luckily, technical editors have the power to correct this corporate messaging problem by championing readership interests, needs, and sensitivities during document creation and review process—safeguarding the audience from irrelevant, insensitive, or burdensome content.
Continue reading “Four Questions for Considering the Needs and Circumstances of Our Audience”