The STC Technical Editing SIG Is Here for You – but We Need You Too!

Technical editing, regardless of how the discipline is defined, is first and foremost reader advocacy—be it for documentation clarity, accuracy, relevance, or accessibility.

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.

Here are some of the benefits the TESIG provides its members:

The TESIG provides advice about technical editing issues:

• Corrigo, the official publication of the TESIG (https://stc-techedit.org/corrigo/), publishes articles about subjects technical editing practitioners find interesting, for example:
  • Stories about how applying technical editing skills increases reader satisfaction
  • Links to sites you might find helpful in your job
  • Tips about how to balance quality and deadlines
• The Editors’ Exchange (#EdEx) on the STC’s #sig-technical-editing Slack channel provides a discussion forum for editors to ask questions and get answers.
  Note: To join the STC Slack space, see the instructions at https://www.stc.org/membership/slack/.
• TESIG quarterly webinars are given by members with professional technical editing backgrounds who share their knowledge and expertise.

The TESIG provides information that demonstrates the importance/value of technical editing and editors to employers and organizations:

• Trying to convince your boss (or a potential boss) about the value a technical editor can bring to documentation quality, customer satisfaction, and the bottom line is not always easy.
• Many TESIG members have been through this process, and have lots of experience that they share to help others in similar situations (for example, on the TESIG website (https://stc-techedit.org/tiki-index.php?page=Understanding+the+Value+of+a+Technical+Editor)).

The TESIG provides guidance to technical editing students, new professionals, and career-shifters as they settle into technical editing positions:

• The Newbies’ Corner feature in Corrigo provides a platform for new, fresh voices about the field of technical editing, written by students and those just starting out in the profession.
• Moderated discussions on the #sig-technical-editing Slack channel enable participants to network with others and talk about school-to-career issues.
• The hashtags #ThisWorkedForMe and #TechEditTips enable Twitter users to find useful information about helpful tools and tricks to make technical editing easier.

But we need your help to do all of this!
Volunteer today – send an email to editor@stc-techedit.org!