Diane Feldman
In many groups that produce technical communication, an editor is a luxury — someone using headcount that would be better filled by another writer. These groups’ creative solution to editing the work they produce is to rely on the writers to edit each other’s work.
My documentation team relied on peer editing for several years. When I was a writer in the group, it seemed practical. Now that I’m the group’s designated editor, I can see more clearly that peer editing is inefficient, unfair and ineffective. I can strongly support that having a dedicated editor really pays off, both in quality and cost-effectiveness. Here are just a few of the reasons why.
- Consistency. When a variety of people do the editing, inconsistency is sure to result. Closely control led templates and a detailed style guide can contribute to cross-document consistency, but they’re not enough.
Worse, if no one person reviews the group’s documents, inconsistencies and errors are perpetuated and wheels are regularly reinvented.
In my editorial role, I frequently find that I can refer one writer to another writer’s work for technical information or for a means of handling a sticky writing problem. Often, writers can use entire passages from another document — but not if they don’t know they exist! As the editor, I see all the work, so I know where I’ve seen material that would be useful. - Tools. Style guides, templates and glossaries contribute mightily to consistency and efficiency. Creating and maintaining these tools is a natural feedback responsibility for a dedicated editor. In groups without an editor, these tools are created and maintained haphazardly, if they exist at all.
- Scheduling. In most peer-editing systems, work is edited by whomever has the time. Often, however, deadlines and review dates converge and no one has time! Editing probably isn’t part of every writer’s job description, or it’s at most a minor component. It’s not reasonable or fair to ask a writer to carve from a project schedule the substantial amount of time required for a careful edit. The result? In a pinch, documents get a quick copy edit — or none at all!
- Quality. In any work group, it’s likely that some people have more talent for and experience with editing than do others.
When writers with less talent and experience are the ones who “have the time,” the edit ing quality is bound to suffer. - Efficiency. An ad hoc editing job is an interruption to a writer’s main focus. Because editing is an occasional responsibility, writers don’t edit often enough to become proficient. They need time to ramp up when they have editing to do, and they lack well-developed techniques for editing quickly and thoroughly. As mentioned earlier, efficiency suffers even further if style guides and templates aren’t well-maintained.
- Message. Peer-editing systems unintentionally communicate to writers, technical experts and management that editing is an afterthought that takes no particular effort or expertise!
A good editor can be a writing coach, an objective source of feedback and a creative stimulator. Because editing tasks tend to come in waves, an added bonus is that the editor is available between waves to take on unscheduled odd jobs that inevitably pop up, such as small document maintenance projects, working on the departmental intranet and the like. If your group is looking for ways to justify hiring an editor, you might start by logging the time writers spend editing, maintaining templates and style guides, and documenting the procedures are used within the group. The cumulative time might surprise you! If the editorial time isn’t enough to justify a full-time editor, you might consider designating an interested writer as the sole person who reviews the group’s work. (You’ll have to adjust his or her writing workload accordingly.) By transferring the editing work to one person, the total editing hours spent within your group is the same (or improved) and you can realize all the gains in quality and efficiency.
Before long, you’ll wonder why you ever thought peer editing was an efficient solution!
Does your organization have a unique arrangement for editing documents? E-mail julia.neunreiter@agedwards.com, and we may feature your approach in a future issue of Corrigo.