Category: Best Practices

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Of Interest: Definition of Quality (Editing) Panel at ConVEx 2021

Every documentation team strives to produce high-quality content. Unfortunately, the definition of what that means differs significantly, from company to company, from writer to writer, from user to user.

On 28 April 2021 at 0630 EDT at ConVEx 2021, a panel of top-class editors (Dana Aubin, Andrea Studzinski, and me too! :)) will talk about how to identify and prioritize the critical factors that influence the perception of quality, and discuss the best ways to achieve agreement on its definition.

To be a part of this fascinating discussion, as well as get more career-empowering knowledge, practices, networking, and practical solutions to improve your content strategy and technical documentation, register here: https://convex.infomanagementcenter.com

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License to Edit: Techniques for Technical Editing Success

By Ann Marie Queeney

The exciting exploits of James Bond may seem far removed from the field of technical editing. However, after reading a book titled, The Man with the Golden Typewriter: James Bond’s Letters I recognized that Ian Fleming––the creator of the iconic spy series––was a disciplined writer whose commitment to clear, sharp writing and accuracy shares many similarities with good technical editing practices.

This article draws upon the mentioned book’s witty and insightful letters between Fleming and his editing team at Jonathan Cape (his publisher), friends, and Bond fans to discuss good editing practices. 

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Coming Attractions: Let’s Talk about How to Test an Editor’s Skills before Hiring

What’s the best way to vet appropriate candidates for technical editing positions? Technical editing practitioners want to ensure that their skill sets are properly understood, and documentation managers want to feel confident that they’ve hired the best person.

As part of Corrigo‘s series of Conversation Starter articles, I’ve asked Odile Sullivan-Tarazi to start a conversation on this topic based on her personal experiences, both as a tester and as a testee. Her article will be published here on Corrigo on 14 January 2020.

To join in on what we hope will be a fascinating conversation, you can submit your own article on the subject to Corrigo (editor@stc-techedit.org), or you can write your thoughts the Comments section. If there are enough comments, we’ll collect them all and post them as an article as well.

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Best of Corrigo: The Editor as Leader – How Expanding Your Role Can Boost Your Profession, Your Employer, and Your Career

(Originally published in 2000; republished with minor changes in 2019)

Marcy Pack

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.

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Four Questions for Considering the Needs and Circumstances of Our Audience

By Danielle Karr

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.

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