Coming Attractions: Let’s Talk about How to Test an Editor’s Skills before Hiring

What’s the best way to vet appropriate candidates for technical editing positions? Technical editing practitioners want to ensure that their skill sets are properly understood, and documentation managers want to feel confident that they’ve hired the best person.

As part of Corrigo‘s series of Conversation Starter articles, I’ve asked Odile Sullivan-Tarazi to start a conversation on this topic based on her personal experiences, both as a tester and as a testee. Her article will be published here on Corrigo on 14 January 2020.

To join in on what we hope will be a fascinating conversation, you can submit your own article on the subject to Corrigo (editor@stc-techedit.org), or you can write your thoughts the Comments section. If there are enough comments, we’ll collect them all and post them as an article as well.

This Worked for Me: Checking the Quality of a Hard-Copy Document in 60 Minutes

Editor’s Note: The most popular post of all time on Corrigo is Indian Copyeditors Forum: Connecting Editors, Creating Opportunities. Editing in India is a growing field, and the ICF was founded in 2015 by Vivek Kumar to create awareness about editing in India and bring Indian editorial freelancers together. You can see their first newsletter, iEdit, here.
Yateendra Joshi, the author of this article, is a member of the ICF.
It is my hope that publishing articles written by our colleagues in other countries will expand our own awareness of the global reach of our profession.

By Yateendra Joshi

As professional technical editors, we are sometimes asked to comment on the quality of a hard-copy document. “Take a quick look and tell me what you think” is a typical request.

In this article, I’m going to suggest a plan for performing this type of quality check in an hour. This plan uses the following definitions when determining quality:

  • Freedom from defects
  • Conformance to standards
  • Suitability for intended use.
Continue reading “This Worked for Me: Checking the Quality of a Hard-Copy Document in 60 Minutes”

Conversation Starter: In Response to the Claim That Technical Editors Need Not Be “Grammarians”

(Editor’s Note: Michelle Corbin’s article, “Technical Editors Do Not Need To Be Grammarians,” started a very interesting conversation about technical editing and grammar.
The following lengthy comment was posted to the original article; to make it easier to continue this fascinating discussion, I’ve turned it into a standalone post.
Please feel free to continue discussing this – send your comments to editor@stc-techedit.org.

By Odile Sullivan-Tarazi

Perhaps it comes down to what you mean by “grammar.”

Continue reading “Conversation Starter: In Response to the Claim That Technical Editors Need Not Be “Grammarians””

The Best of Corrigo: Technical Editors Do Not Need To Be Grammarians

By Michelle Corbin
(originally published in 2013, republished with permission in 2019)

After reading a grammar textbook, I have been pondering how well technical editors need to know grammar. How much grammar must they know to edit the information, but also how much must they know to help their writers improve their writing ability?

Continue reading “The Best of Corrigo: Technical Editors Do Not Need To Be Grammarians”