B E T H A N Y B O W L E S

Technical Editing for Beginners

What is Technical Editing?

“Technical editing is the editing of scientific, engineering, medical, or other complex documents for both language and content issues. The language aspect covers traditional copyediting and production editing concerns; the content aspect involves substantive editing to address the accuracy and completeness of the technical information and to ensure that it is intelligible to the intended audience.”-STC Technical Editing SIG Wiki

What Does it Take to be a Technical Editor?

“The art and skill of editing require specialized knowledge of the use of language and the methods by which we make sense of information” -Carolyn Rude, The Longman Guide to Technical Editing (4)

Tools Knowledge of:

Style guides

Dictionaries

Checklists or style sheets

Editing markup system

Desktop publishing tools

English language

Typographic & layout

Editing types & levels

Editorial commenting

Time management

What Do You Need to be a Technical Editor?

Style Manuals

Chicago Manual of Style

Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Manual

American Psychological Association (APA) Style Manual

Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications

The Elements of Style

Levels of Edits

Content-Focus Levels of Edit from Nadziejka

Rush Edit Not enough time for a complete edit Emphasis on comprehension Selection of editing tasks within the limited amount of time Three types of tasks to be completed in order, and as time allows:

Technical content considerations Policy considerations Copy editing considerations

Standard Edit Plenty of time to do a complete edit Complete editing of the document Includes all of the editing tasks in a Rush Edit, but in the order of the editor’s choosing:

Technical content considerations Style considerations Language considerations Integrity considerations Policy considerations

Revision Edit More time-intensive edit Bringing several authors together Document is not nearing completion, is not yet ready for a Standard Edit Involves reorganization and major revisions to document

Rude’s Types of Editing

Copy Edit

Comprehensive Edit

Mechanics of Editing

Colons, semicolons, and commas

Hyphens and dashes

Parentheses and brackets

List structure and usage

Subject/verb agreement

Dangling and misplaced modifiers

Noun strings

Active/passive voice

Parallelism

Types of Errors

Grammatical mistakes

Misspellings or typos

Incorrect punctuation

Inconsistent usage

Ambiguous technical information

Wrong scientific terms

Wrong units and dimensions

Inconsistent significant figures

Improper data or chart presentation

Citation errors

Copyediting

Markup of language: Grammar

Punctuation

Style

Focusing at word-level and sentence-level

Rules-based

Can do a copy edit separate from a comprehensive edit

Focus more on these quality characteristics: Clarity

Style

Visual Effectiveness

Basic Steps for Copyediting

1. Gather information about the project.

2. Survey the document overall.

3. Run spell checker and/or grammar checker.

4. Edit paragraphs and headings for:1. Correctness

2. Consistency

3. Accuracy.

5. Edit illustrations, equations, reference list, table of contents, front matter, and back matter.

6. Prepare the document for production.

Proofreaders’ Marks

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_proof.html

Activity

“This section by Wiliams and Abbott’s was particularly helpful for me since I never used a descriptive bibliography in research before. Prior to reading this I found the term “descriptive” ironically so vague that I was not even sure what it means (160). Having the list of things a descriptive bibliography does clarified it’s purpose and points of interest. The reader almost didn’t know any of these: identification, titles pages and imprints, collation contents, typography and paper, binding, and bibliographic history.”

Also Known As:

Analyze the purpose of the document

Understand the readers and their tasks

Anticipates readers’ needs Focus on:

Content Organization Visual design Overall style

Comprehensive editing precedes copy editing

Substantive editing

Development editing

Macro editing

Analysis-based editing

Comprehensive Editing

Basic Steps for Comprehensive Editing

1. Analyze the purpose, readers, and uses for the document.

2. Evaluate the content, organization, visual design, style, and reader accommodations.

3. Establish editing objectives and document them in a specific plan for editing.

4. Review the plan with the writer, and work toward consensus on changes to make.

Microsoft Word Adobe Acrobat

How to Track Edits

Questions?