I’m exhausted. My entire weekend was spent editing the report for our virtual team assignment. I’m asking myself now – was it wise to take the editing role?
Yes, of course it was. On a Technical Writing course, to practice the skills of document editing is invaluable (even for me – a Technical Writer whose skills are rusty).
If you were the Editor, think of the skills you were using: collating information, checking for inconsistencies (of which there were many!), checking grammar and spelling, localisation (and not ‘localization’ ;-) ) rewriting text, formatting the document, and so on. If you are able to do these skills well (and you enjoyed it), then you will quite likely enjoy Technical Writing. Editing is a huge part of the job.
Whether or not our report reads well, academically, I can only hope so. I believe academic writing is a separate skill and there is only so much editing you can do to make it sound like one voice (especially in a limited timeframe). It's just hard to believe it is only worth 30%, for all the effort it required.
For me it came down to trust. I wanted to be an editor because it's something I enjoy and am reasonably good at. I knew I'd do a decent job as a copy-editor and proofreader. I also trusted Susan and Sherona to copy-edit effectively. Because it's good to have more than one copy-editor, they assumed the role too. I did the initial copy-edit, then sent it to Sherona, who in turn sent it to Susan. There's progressively less work for each editor as a document goes through this filtration process.
ReplyDeleteOne report in particular by one of the US team-members required extensive amendments for syntax and spelling in particular. *Their* report took me three hours to edit and I had a pain in my head at the end of it. All in all though, I enjoyed the role.
You enjoyed the role? Well, you are in the right field!
ReplyDeleteIt is always good to have several editors work on a document. They provide different perspectives, spot different mistakes, and perfect the document in ways in which one person could not do on his/her own. It is common practice for a document to undergo rigorous editing in the industry. It usually undergoes an internal edit by the writers for the likes of grammar, punctuation and formatting, and then the client will look for 'technical' errors. Needless to say, they will always find other types of errors. It is very difficult to produce perfection. The pareto rule springs to mind (80/20 rule).
Unfortunately, because we were one team member down, our second editor had to do her role (although he did manage to find some time in the end to review the document). A document of perfection, it is not. A pretty good document, I think so. :)
I've no doubt at all that yours is, at the very least, 'a pretty good document', Maresa ;)
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