Coming Soon: The STC TESIG Editors’ Exchange 2023 Mini-Conference!

The goal of the STC Technical Editing SIG (TESIG) is to provide its members with high quality information about editing processes and best practices, as well as resources that demonstrate the value of editing and editors in an organization.

To meet this goal, we are happy to announce EdEx23, an online mini-conference dedicated to the field of technical editing and to technical editing practitioners.

EdEx23 will be held on 14 November 2023 from 8:45 AM to 12:00 PM ET (for your local time, go to https://tinyurl.com/cw228pyx). Come hear the following fascinating speakers:

  • Chelsea Fulton will be presenting a session called “Write It Right: Implementing a Global Style Guide“.
  • Fatima Hyder will be speaking about “Technical Editors – What Are They Good For?“.
  • Leah Guren will talk about “Don’t Touch That Doc ’til You’ve Had the Talk!”.

We especially encourage students and new technical editing practitioners to join us!

To see details about the presentations and to purchase tickets for EdEx23, go to https://tinyurl.com/35w7ae8p.

The price of the tickets is for the entire mini-conference, and attendees can join at any time. All sessions will be recorded, and the recordings and slides will be made available to attendees after the mini-conference.

EdEx23 attendees who are STC members can earn up to 2 CEUs for the full half-day program. For credit, submit a request for CEUs to certification@stc.org.

Editing in a Structured Environment

by Kit Brown-Hoekstra

As new technologies expand omni-channel publishing requirements and companies extend the global reach of their products, services, and content marketing, the role of editor becomes both more critical and more strategic. Effective editorial, governance, and change management processes directly impact a company’s bottom line.

Continue reading “Editing in a Structured Environment”

This Worked for Me: How to Create an Internal Style Guide that Users Will Follow

by Chelsea Fulton

Part 1: Welcome! Now, please memorize all of this.

I started my technical communications career in 2011. I was hired to document a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for the contact center of a Fortune 50 company, and my new team had an existing style guide. For a long time, our style guide was a one-page HTML document that outlined frequently used documentation processes and even included sections of code that users could easily copy/paste directly into drafted content. This style guide version worked well for a team of 4–5 people. However, the CRM system transition project and adding several new technical writers meant we needed more extensive documentation guidelines.

Continue reading “This Worked for Me: How to Create an Internal Style Guide that Users Will Follow”

Newbies’ Corner: Monthly TESIG Student Chats

One of the goals of the TESIG is to help technical editing students get more involved in the field. We want to hear some new, fresh voices, especially from those who are studying the subject or just starting out.  It’s important to us to discuss the needs, dreams, and issues of the next generation of technical editing practitioners.

With this goal in mind, we are excited to announce the TESIG Monthly Student Chat series!

These 30-minute virtual chats will be held over Zoom on the last Wednesday of each month, and are a forum for current TESIG student members to discuss editing challenges, as well as share helpful resources, editing tactics and tips, and career advice about finding internships/jobs.

For details, please contact student_outreach@stc-techedit.org.

Of Interest: Editing for Leaner Modern Content Webinar

As a TechComm editor, you often work with old legacy content that is overly formal, poorly structured, and contains unnecessary information.

Your challenge is to reduce complexity and remove unnecessary content to improve the user experience. But how do you get started?

On 8 September 2022 at 10 AM ET (for
your local time zone, go to https://bit.ly/3KHn0A1), join renowned speaker Leah Guren to learn:

  • Why fluff is so bad
  • Why lean content is a future-proof TechComm skill
  • How to identify common forms of fluff
  • How to edit aggressively
  • How to think creatively to solve structure problems
  • …and more!

To order tickets for this webinar, go to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/editing-for-leaner-modern-content-tickets-387978854197