Posts

Posted on

This Worked for Me: Checking the Quality of a Hard-Copy Document in 60 Minutes

Editor’s Note: The most popular post of all time on Corrigo is Indian Copyeditors Forum: Connecting Editors, Creating Opportunities. Editing in India is a growing field, and the ICF was founded in 2015 by Vivek Kumar to create awareness about editing in India and bring Indian editorial freelancers together. You can see their first newsletter, iEdit, here.
Yateendra Joshi, the author of this article, is a member of the ICF.
It is my hope that publishing articles written by our colleagues in other countries will expand our own awareness of the global reach of our profession.

By Yateendra Joshi

As professional technical editors, we are sometimes asked to comment on the quality of a hard-copy document. “Take a quick look and tell me what you think” is a typical request.

In this article, I’m going to suggest a plan for performing this type of quality check in an hour. This plan uses the following definitions when determining quality:

  • Freedom from defects
  • Conformance to standards
  • Suitability for intended use.
Continue reading “This Worked for Me: Checking the Quality of a Hard-Copy Document in 60 Minutes”
Posted on

Conversation Starter: In Response to the Claim That Technical Editors Need Not Be “Grammarians”

(Editor’s Note: Michelle Corbin’s article, “Technical Editors Do Not Need To Be Grammarians,” started a very interesting conversation about technical editing and grammar.
The following lengthy comment was posted to the original article; to make it easier to continue this fascinating discussion, I’ve turned it into a standalone post.
Please feel free to continue discussing this – send your comments to editor@stc-techedit.org.

By Odile Sullivan-Tarazi

Perhaps it comes down to what you mean by “grammar.”

Continue reading “Conversation Starter: In Response to the Claim That Technical Editors Need Not Be “Grammarians””
Posted on

The Best of Corrigo: Technical Editors Do Not Need To Be Grammarians

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”

Posted on

New Feature: Conversation Starter

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:

  • You can submit your own article to Corrigo to debate with the author, write what you think about the topic, tell us if you’ve had similar or counter experiences, and to learn about what other innovative measures you might be taking to solve the issue.
  • You can use the Comments section to to do the same thing!
    If there are enough comments on a topic, we’ll collect them all and post them as an article as well.

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.

Posted on

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.

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