Category: Skills

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Newbies’ Corner: Editing in an International Virtual Team (A Collaboration between Students at Mercer University and the Université de Paris)

Editor’s Note: This is another article in our Newbies’ Corner series. If you or your students are interested in submitting an article for this feature, please contact me at editor@stc-techedit.org.

By Madison Bellew, Jeremy Collins, Alex Donnelly, Danielle Levy, Sydnei Mayers, Jeremiah Pulliam, Kim Wallace, and Victoria Whitehead

Technical editing is often facilitated by technology, both for the practice of editing and for communication among contributors. Students in technical communication programs bring their own perspective to editing experiences that might differ from those of more experienced professional technical editors.

In this article, students in an international technical communication class at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, U.S., share their perspectives and the lessons they learned during their experience with an international editing project completed using virtual teaming. In the project, the Mercer University students edited a report written by students at the Université de Paris about technical communication in France. Students at both universities used multiple platforms to communicate as a team about expectations for the group, the report itself, and the edits made by the Mercer University students. 

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Of Interest: To Be More Efficient and Consistent, Build a Better Checklist

Anyone writing, editing, or managing any type of communication for a living is feeling the crunch. There is less time to create and edit; more types and formats of content; more apps, software, and systems to learn. And we expect quality, accuracy, and consistency from ourselves because we take pride in our work.

On 30 December 2020 at 3 PM EST, Kelly Schrank will discuss how to address a multitude of modern dilemmas with a relatively old-school hack: a checklist.

In this webinar, Kelly will teach you how to use a comprehensive checklist created and updated for a specific communication task to help you:

  • Differentiate workflows, systems, and activities
  • Spell out style and formatting details
  • Track your progress
  • Document metrics
  • Give you a sense of completion and peace of mind

This is a joint STC Technical Editing SIG, STC Santa Barbara, and STC Los Angeles event, and is open to members and non-members:

  • TE SIG members: $0
  • P&P SIG members: $0
  • Santa Barbara chapter members: $0
  • Los Angeles chapter members: $0
  • Students: $0
  • Other STC members: $10
  • Non-members: $20

To register, click here.

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Newbies’ Corner: User or Rulebook, Guide or Grammarian?

Editor’s Note: This is the first article in the Newbies’ Corner series, which is intended to give a platform to new, fresh voices, especially from those who are studying the field or just starting out. If you are a student learning about technical editing or just starting out on your technical editing journey, and would like to submit an article, please send an email to editor@stc-techedit.org.

by Nathan Richardson

As technical communicators and editors, we know about the importance of user-centered processes. There’s a growing demand for user experience (UX) writers and UX designers, and for building UX into our organization’s (or personal) content strategy from the start.

We also have a foundational commitment to “the rules.” Our work builds on reviewing content and suggesting changes in media, style, grammar, voice, and tone, among other things. We question the accuracy and completeness of a given communication and its content. For example, when editing a set of instructions, we could follow the steps, seeking errors or missing information. As technical editors, we may also try to break those instructions and identify their limits—which provides our authors with insights they might have missed. We also look for consistency, ensuring that, for example, fractional measurements are plural and consistent (think 0.7 inch vs. 0.7 inches, and within the same document .8 inches becomes 0.8 inches). We ask: are all references to other publications, articles, or patent-related prior art accurate?

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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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Conversation Starter: The Joys of Teaching Engineers to Write

By Christa Bedwin

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in April 2016, so it is part of the Best of Corrigo series. However, based on the interest in a similar article, I decided to republish it as a Conversation Starter as well.
It has been updated for 2020.

After twenty years of editing science, research, education, and engineering documentation, some of my favorite people to edit for are engineers. This baffles some of my fellow editors, who find engineers confusing or complicated to work with, and so I began to teach courses on how to navigate editing with engineers, and with engineering content. (I also teach courses for engineers to learn to write better.)

I am always delighted to discuss this topic further – please feel free to write to me! I’m easy to find on the Internet.

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