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Conversation Starter: What Are Your Thoughts About “Male” and “Female” Connecter Ends?

Editor’s Note: As part of our Conversation Starter feature, we present what we hope will be an ongoing discussion about the evolution of the English language, especially the use of gendered descriptive adjectives. For a related topic, see Conversation Starter: How Do You Feel About the Singular “They”?

Want to join the conversation? Email your thoughts to editor@stc-techedit.org, or write them in the Comments section at the end of this article. We’ll publish them in future issues.

Professor Jo Mackiewicz of Iowa State University is studying how editors make editorial decisions about issues related to gender, and has put together a short survey about the about the use of “male” and “female” to describe connector ends (for example, the end of a cable or a pipe fitting). The survey should take just 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the detail you provide in your responses

The findings of this study can help editors better understand how other editors make editorial decisions related to gendered descriptive adjectives.

To participate in this study, go to: https://iastate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4TpOSYCPEARiJMy

If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Mackiewicz (jomack@iastate.edu).

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Announcing the STC Technical Editing SIG Editors’ Exchange 2022 Mini-Conference!

The STC Technical Editing SIG is proud to announce its first official mini-conference – EdEx2022!

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 launching the first of what we hope will be an annual event – a mini-conference dedicated to the field of technical editing and to technical editing practitioners.

EdEx2022 will be held on 15 November 2022 from 8:45 AM to 12:00 PM ET (for your local time, go to https://bit.ly/3ARVwEn).

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

To see details about the presentations and to purchase tickets for EdEx2022, go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stc-technical-editing-sig-editors-exchange-2022-mini-conference-tickets-372579063007.

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 recording and slides will be made available to attendees after the mini-conference.

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Introducing the New STC Technical Editing SIG Website!

The STC TESIG is proud to announce its new, easy-to-use website:
website.stc-techedit.org!

On the TESIG website, you can find information about:

  • The TESIG’s goals, especially in terms of student outreach
  • The nice volunteers who run the TESIG
  • Events you might be interested in
  • Discussion forums where you can discuss issues with other technical editing practitioners
  • Editing resources that might make your job easier
  • Our cool #TechEditNoJoke competition
  • How to contact the TESIG

Come on over and tell us what you think! 🙂

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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

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Eye for Editing: The Editor as Teacher

Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published in the STC Notebook in 2014 as part of a series. To make it easier for you to find these articles again in the future, they are tagged with the Eye for Editing tag, and the titles prefaced with the same phrase.

Author's Note: This is the last article (that currently exists) in this Eye for Editing series. It has been fun to revisit my thoughts from the “first edition” in STC Notebook to find that most, if not all of it, still holds true to the editing experience. 
Do you have an idea for a follow-up article that you’d like to publish in Corrigo? Would you like to put together your answers to my questions for others to read? Submit your ideas and articles to the Corrigo editor at editor@stc-techedit.org.  And you are welcome to contact me any time to keep the conversation going

By Paula Robertson

How do you think of yourself in your editing role? Is each document, article, topic, or book by the same author or team of writers an isolated editing task? Does each task seem to start from scratch as if you’d not edited that author’s work before? Or does each subsequent edit you deliver build on your previous suggestions and comments? Do subsequent documents indicate that the writer “got it the first (or last) time”?

Continue reading “Eye for Editing: The Editor as Teacher”