Author: Yoel Strimling

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Scholarship Winner: Discovering the Breadth and Depth of Technical Communication and Technical Editing

Lindsay Taylor

Editor’s Note: Once again this year, the STC Technical Editing SIG offered scholarships to one undergraduate and one graduate student in technical communication. One part of the scholarship application was to describe a project or research that the applicant was involved in. We asked the scholarship winners to write a newsletter article summarizing their project or research. This is the first of such articles from our undergraduate scholarship winner.

Before taking my first undergraduate courses in technical communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had never imagined how complex and broad the field of technical communication really is. My coursework made it clear how much more I had to learn about technical communication, such as the different fields one can work in (science, engineering, etc.) or the different approaches to editing (individually and in a team).

To exemplify the variety of lessons I have learned—all precedents for future studies—I would like to describe two projects that were of particular value. Each demonstrates very different but equally important elements of my technical communication education. The first, for an introductory technical communication course, was writing and editing a semester-long research project on treatments for Parkinson’s disease in the fall of 2008. The second project, for a technical editing course, was a comprehensive team technical editing assignment on the UW Engineers Without Borders (EWB) handbook in March of 2009. I will describe what each project taught me about technical communication and how I will use that information in my future work as a technical communicator.

As an English major, I have written many research papers throughout my undergraduate career. In my first semester of the Technical Communication program, however, I was assigned to write a comprehensive, 15-page research paper on a scientific or engineering-related concept. While my background in science prepared me for the material, I was intimidated by the idea of writing a research paper of such magnitude outside of my own discipline. Even my work directing an interdisciplinary writing-tutoring program did not fully prepare me for the writing style used in technical communication, a style very different from what I was used to in the humanities. To write this particular research paper, I read countless samples of science writing and technical documents, meticulously followed my professor’s (Laura Grossenbacher’s) handbook on technical communication, and capitalized on peer-editing sessions with my classmates, all of which exposed me to different styles of technical writing. Though the report was supplemented by the edits and comments of my classmates, the paper was essentially an independent project that tested my ability to think critically and learn a new skill. By the end of the semester, I felt that I had produced an effective research paper and had discovered a new appreciation and passion for technical communication. This individual project reminded me of the importance of revision, word economy, and researching skills, all of which continue to contribute toward my success writing in a variety of disciplines. I know that I will remember this project one day when I am faced with a challenging technical communication assignment that tests my ability to be flexible and open-minded in learning new skills. I also value the independence that this project gave me: the ability to own a document from start to finish.

The second compelling technical editing project I worked on was with UW’s Engineers Without Borders (EWB) handbook in a technical editing course in spring 2009. Last year, two senior UW-EWB members informally produced a comprehensive, 50-page manual for new EWB members, describing everything from the group’s mission to how to use Skype when working in developing countries. The handbook was an important resource but would benefit from improvements in content, organization, and design. Our class was assigned to help improve the overall appearance and effectiveness of the document. In teams of four, our class worked to comprehensively edit the entire document. I’d like to describe this project because the team editing approach was so distinct from writing an individual technical document.

While I have worked on group projects before, I had never quite tackled a project of such magnitude. I learned how to collaborate with a team of editors who all see different positive and negative elements of a document. Just to interact within a group of four editors was challenging, but beyond that, the five groups in the class had to agree upon several universal editing points within the document. This project was particularly fascinating because of the amount of communication that went on among and between groups. Editing this large document would have been time-consuming and rather impractical for just one editor. This team editing project truly taught me about the effectiveness of a group of editors, something that I had not completely understood before this course.

One additional technical editing lesson I learned from the EWB handbook editing project was the great difference between copyediting and comprehensive editing. As a Writing Fellow (a UW writing tutor), I was trained to prioritize global issues in a document; then, as the copyeditor of the Wisconsin Engineer magazine, UW’s undergraduate engineering publication, I focused specifically on local, mechanical edits in documents. However, in addition to these issues, my work on the UW-EWB handbook taught me that the field of technical editing also requires analysis of organization and content and maintaining an open communication line with the author. My group and I closely collaborated with the authors of the handbook, and we were responsible for making universal changes throughout the document on both objective items, such as capitalization, and on more subjective topics, like the tone of the handbook. I discovered that several elements of editing are interdisciplinary, despite the great differences between writing styles and fields.

Both of these projects stemmed from great assignments set by excellent professors. I am grateful for the distinguished professors I was able to learn from during my undergraduate technical communication studies at UW. The lessons I gained from their projects were diverse, yet each provided fruitful practice for a future career in technical editing. I realize now that technical communication crosses many disciplines, topics, and writing styles, and as a recent graduate deciding on a career path, the diversity of the field is the most compelling factor to me. I will retain the lessons I have learned from both of these projects and will apply that knowledge in my continued education of the field of technical communication.

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2009 Conference Highlights: Tech Edit SIG Excitement at the Conference

Wow, I hope you had a chance to follow some tweets we sent during the conference. If so, you might have heard about the exciting times there. To wrap up:

Awards

At the Honors Banquet, we were extremely pleased (see the photo) to accept the Community of Distinction award on behalf of our volunteers, members, and past leadership board. We’d particularly like to call out the work of these past presidents: Pat Moell, Michelle Corbin, and Dianne Feldman for their contributions to make this award a reality.

Picture of Vanessa Wilburn and Meredith Kinder at awards banquet.

STC president Cindy Currie, TE SIG co-manager Vanessa Wilburn, immediate past present, Mark Clifford, TE SIG co-manager Meredith Kinder, and 1st Vice President Michael Hughes.

Breakfast Meeting and Networking

Over 26 people joined us for the 7:15 am breakfast and networking during our annual business meeting. We shared our thoughts by posting “I love the TE SIG because…” on the walls of the room. See your peers’ thoughts in the photos below. We recapped our activities in the past year and talked about our upcoming plans, such as membership meetings, our use of social networking technologies, more additions to our web site, and the much-loved discussion list. Thanks to Jeff Japp for taking notes. In addition, the group shared its thoughts about how to help STC better promote its conference through better written session descriptions and templates.

Picture of notes Why I Love TE SIG.

Click to read the notes
I love STC because I can talk about problems with people who understand.

I love STC because I can talk about problems with people who understand. Good to know there are other editors out there!

Sessions for Editors

Thanks go to Shirley Burns and Gururaj B.S. for the SIG brochure that also included a list of sessions of interest to editors. We handed out 100 of these brochures to attendees. In addition to that, at the Community Reception on Monday evening, Kelly Shrank helped us meet and greet both potential members and current members, as well as hand out editor goodies: sticky pads in the shape of punctuation marks, fluorescent sticky flags, highlighters, and editing buttons.

Picture of Kelly Shrank

Kelly Schrank
Picture of the Editing Progression

The Editing Progression

We had 67 people attend the Editing Progression (the room was at capacity!). With six dynamic topics, each table had lively debate and conversation about Editing Challenges and Opportunities: Tracking Your Editing Metrics, What Practitioners Can Learn from Students, Keeping Your Editing Skills Sharp, The Editor’s Role in Building Community, The Editor’s Role in Screencast Development, and The Remote Editor. Several attendees commented that this was the best session at the conference!

Share Your Experience

Please enter thoughts about your experience at the conference in the Comments section below. Share what you learned, your summaries of your favorite sessions, or your opinions on the events you attended.

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Setting Up an Editorial Review Process

Sarah Barczyk

So you want to be a technical editor. You’re well-versed in grammar, style, punctuation, and the mechanics of the English language. You know what it takes to produce a clear, concise, readable paragraph and a coherent technical document.

Subject-matter experts within your company recognize that you’re an asset and routinely seek you out for writing help and perhaps enlist your aid in editing large documents. But you know that so much more can be done. All you need is a process. It sounds so simple…

But simple it’s not. As someone who’s suffered the bumps and bruises that come along with setting up an editorial review process, I can attest to that. I can also offer a few tips for integrating the editorial review into the documentation process.

First and foremost: start small. If you work for a large company, pick a particular department or project and garner managerial support by putting together a concise proposal that outlines the advantages that an editorial review process can provide. Mention benefits such as consistency across documentation for the end user and a more polished and professional look to customer deliverables. A clean document will require less rework down the road, resulting in an overall cost savings to the company, and will improve customer satisfaction. If a customer receives a document with a high rate of errors, there is a good chance the technical content will be perceived as erroneous as well. Once you have the backing of upper management, the establishment of a process will become much easier.

Be flexible, yet firm in setting up your process. Understand that the unknown is scary (and fond reminiscences of English class probably do not exist in the minds of your technical coworkers), but stress the importance of a standard course of practice. Research the place that an editorial review will fit in your documentation workflow, and gather feedback from authors, document coordinators, and mangers. I have found that the editorial review fits best at the end of the writing process, after any technical reviews. In this placement, the author and editor can work together to resolve any last-minute language issues, and the document will have a professional and polished look and feel before manager approval. There may be instances due to time constraints when this process may have to be relaxed. Be prepared to be flexible, but do everything you can to enforce a standard process.

Expect resistance. Most nonwriters view documentation as a necessary evil. Be they doctors, architects, or engineers, the technical work comes first; documentation is simply a means to transmit knowledge. What’s important is the content. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told, “It doesn’t have to read like a novel. It just has to make sense.”

You’re going to encounter people who view editors as formatters or spell-checkers. They don’t understand that an editor can provide consistency across company documentation. They don’t recognize that an editor can make each document more readable for the intended audience. They don’t appreciate that an editor can catch simple mistakes that have previously gone unnoticed because the author happened to be too close to the document content.

In short, you’re going to encounter people who just don’t care about the editorial review process. They’ll view it as an extra step, which means extra time and money that they’re not willing to spend. And they won’t hesitate to let you know it. Here’s where managerial support will be a great asset.

You’re also going to have to prove yourself. You must prove that you’re just as much as an expert in your area as your technical coworkers are in theirs. You need to be able to back up every edit you make with information found in style guides, well-documented conventions, and company policies and procedures. An engineer may have earned a PhD in quantum physics, but that does not mean that he or she has ever taken the time to learn the proper way to punctuate a gerund phrase.

Each edit must be clearly communicated, and communicated with tact. Pose your comments as suggestions rather than directives, and be open to explanation. An author may have deviated from the standard, but he or she may have a very good reason for having done so. And always remember that the document is the author’s property. There may be times when you disagree regarding a particular point, but know when to pick your battles. If the author is dead-set against a change that you’ve suggested (whether or not he or she is correct), keep a record of the conflict and move on. Resist the tendency to engage in a power struggle, which may result in costly delays.

Keep in mind that a face-to-face conversation is a great way to take the edge off of a critique. Schedule a time to discuss your edits and to ask questions of the author. Build a relationship and show your own willingness to learn about the technical content of a document.

Consider creating an editorial review checklist. This is an efficient way to keep track of items (such as formatting and numbering conventions, capitalization standards, and rules for including acronyms) that may need to be assessed for each document. It’s also an appropriate place to document any specific disagreements that you may have with the author’s rejection of a suggested change. A checklist can serve as a tool for gathering metrics and tracking common mistakes and issues that regularly arise during the editorial review process. Finally, a checklist provides a means by which to secure your job as a technical editor; it will serve as the proof of your value to the company.

In these tough economic times, it may be difficult for a company to justify the added expense that an editorial review process may bring, but in the end, error-free deliverables will save the company effort and money. All documentation can use a little polish; as an editor, it’s your job to make it shine.

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Obsessed with Possessives

Andrea Wenger

We see it everywhere: our schools, our places of business, even in notes stuck on our refrigerator. Yes, my friends, I’m talking about apostrophe abuse. The Obama administration, faced with two wars and an economy teetering on the edge of disaster, is unlikely to make this a priority. So it’s our duty as professional communicators to stamp it out.

My elementary school teacher made it sound easy. “To make a word a possessive, add an ’s, unless the word is a plural ending in s, and then, just add an apostrophe.” Ah, life was simpler in elementary school. True, many atrocities (such as Grammar Girl’s report of a menu advertising Ladie’s Night) could be avoided if people applied that straightforward rule. Yet there are myriad exceptions, and even the U.S. Supreme Court can’t agree on them (more on that later).

Pronouns

Possessive pronouns don’t use apostrophes: hers, his, its, ours, theirs, whose, yours. Most of us wouldn’t have a problem with this rule if it weren’t for the contractions it’s (it is, it has) and who’s (who is, who has). The sentence, Who’s book is this? doesn’t look wrong to me, but of course, it is. It should read, Whose book is this?

Personal possessive pronouns are often called absolute possessives, because they can occur with no noun following them. For example, a sentence could read It’s her book, or The book is hers. Absolute possessives are sometimes used mistakenly in conjunction with other possessives. For example, She worried about hers and his safety, should read, She worried about her and his safety. A better choice, though, would be to recast the sentence: She worried about her safety and his, or She worried about his safety, and her own.

Singular Words Ending in S

If a singular word ends in s, is it correct to add an s after the apostrophe in the possessive form? That depends on who you ask. It’s a matter of style, not grammar. As a technical writer, however, I consider it a usability issue. When people read, they hear the words in their head. So where the style guides disagree, I use pronunciation as the ultimate arbiter.

According to The Chicago Manual of Style, if an s at the end of a singular word is pronounced, the possessive is formed by adding ’s. The same is true for words ending in x or z: boss’s office, Alex’s wallet. However, if the ’s would be awkward, avoid the possessive and use of instead: the governor of Texas, the history of jazz. If the s, x, or z is not pronounced, the s after the apostrophe may be omitted: Illinois’ capital, Margaux’ necklace. Follow this practice only if you’re certain of the pronunciation.

Fowler’s Modern English Usage recommends omitting the s after the apostrophe with names ending in an iz sound, as in Beau Bridges’ brother.

The Associated Press Stylebook omits the s after the apostrophe altogether in singular words ending in s. Since newspapers are pressed for space, I suppose they can be forgiven (although I’m not sure I’ll be forgiven for that pun). But unless you’re required to follow AP, I recommend including the s for consistency with pronunciation.

Ancient Names

Ancient names can be troublesome, in part because style guides also disagree here. According to Fowler’s, ancient names ending in s form the possessive with an apostrophe alone: Achilles’ heel, Moses’ journey. However, according to Chicago, while names ending in an eez sound receive only an apostrophe, others use ’s: Aristophanes’ plays, Zeus’s wife. When in doubt, or when both ways look wrong, Chicago recommends using of, as in son of Isis or teachings of Jesus.

Multiple Possessors

Is it Joe and Renalda’s fishing poles, or Joe’s and Renalda’s fishing poles? That depends. Are the fishing poles joint property, or do Joe and Renalda each have their own pole? Placing an ’s only at the end of the group of names denotes joint ownership. Placing an ’s at the end of each individual name denotes individual ownership.

Attributive Forms

The distinction between an attributive form and a possessive is often unclear. A users’ manual isn’t a manual belonging to users; it’s a manual for users. Nevertheless, Chicago recommends retaining the apostrophe except in the case of proper names: citizens’ advocate, Panthers game, Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

Genitives

Analogous to possessives, genitives that denote value or time use an apostrophe, as in five dollars’ worth or two weeks’ notice. The apostrophe in this case stands in for the word of.

Double Possessives

In this idiom, also called a double genitive, a possessive noun or pronoun is used after of, to denote one example of several:
An associate of Sheila’s (or an associate of hers)
A collection of Bob’s (or a collection of his)

According to Garner’s Modern American Usage, some people dislike this idiom, but it has a long history and is widely approved. It can also be intrinsic to meaning: it wouldn’t make much sense to say a collection of Bob. Nevertheless, it might be better to recast the phrase as one of Bob’s collections.

Using an Apostrophe to Form a Plural

The practice of using an apostrophe to form the plural of abbreviations or numerals has fallen out of favor. The most common usage is to simply add an s: UFOs, the 1940s.

With lowercase letters, an apostrophe is needed for clarity. This is usually unnecessary with uppercase letters, but the apostrophe may be used where confusion might otherwise ensue, as in A’s, I’s, and U’s.

”Mind your p’s and q’s.
He got A’s and B’s on his report card.”
but…
He got Bs and Cs on his report card.

Chicago offers several examples of when to use the apostrophe to form a plural and when to leave it out:

maybe’s
ifs, ands, or buts
yesses and noes (or yes’s and no’s, especially if used with maybe’s)
dos and don’ts

For special cases like these, it’s best to consult a good style guide. But if you’re forced to rely on your own judgment, don’t obsess over it. When it comes to apostrophe use, intelligent people can disagree. Jonathan Starble(external link) wrote in Legal Times about a rift in the 2006 Supreme Court case Kansas v. Marsh: in the majority opinion, Justice Thomas consistently used Kansas’ statute, while in the minority opinion, Justice Souter used Kansas’s statute. Although I consider myself a political moderate, I have to side with Justice Souter on this one.

Reprinted with permission from the Carolina Communique(external link), the newsletter for the Carolina Chapter(external link).

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Michelle Corbin Receives Distinguished SIG Service Award

Michelle Corbin Receives Distinguished SIG Service Award

The STC Technical Editing SIG is pleased to announce that Michelle Corbin, STC Associate Fellow, has received a Distinguished SIG Service Award(external link), or DSSA. Started in 2002, the DSSA is intended to recognize exemplary dedication to a SIG and its activities. The SIGs recommend qualified candidates, and the STC Board approves the recipients. The criteria for identifying nominees for the DSSA are length of SIG service, consistency of service over time, and variety of service.

Michelle Corbin

Michelle Corbin

Michelle served as the co-manager of the STC Technical Editing SIG for two years and as the immediate past co-manager for one year. In her tenure she helped revitalize the SIG and put procedures in place to keep it thriving. She has also served and continues to serve as managing editor for Corrigo, the STC Technical Editing SIG newsletter. She also wrote the strategic plan for the SIG and wrote a Tieline article about it. Her strategic plan can serve as a model for other STC communities to develop their plans.

Michelle will be honored at the annual conference along with other DSSA recipients. She will also receive a plaque in honor of her recognition. The citation on this plaque reads, “For your exceptional leadership as STC Technical Editing SIG manager and as newsletter managing editor and for your continuing selfless contributions to the SIG.” Please join us in recognizing Michelle Corbin for all of her past and continued contributions to the Technical Editing SIG.