By: Jonathan Arnett
Upon completion of this chapter, readers will be able to:
This chapter focuses on editing technical documents. In particular, this chapter will address some of the most common types of technical editing you can do, as well as processes, resources, and techniques you can use.
You may find that technical editing is very different from what you expect. When people hear the word "edit," they think of rewriting an author's words; working with authors on issues such as character plot, and storyline; suggesting the most appropriate word in order to make a manuscript "sing." That's not technical editing.
Instead, technical editing is a highly rhetorical, detail-oriented process of ensuring that specialized information appears so that it is appropriate for end users, and technical editors make informed, thoughtful suggestions for improvement toward that purpose.
Technical editing is a collaborative process with authors, who are often subject-matter experts (SMEs, pronounced "smees"), to check correctness of such things as chemical formulas, specialized terminology, equations, and matchups between textual and visual elements, as well as more traditional aspects of writing.
Technical editing is a recursive process, not a one-and-done routine. Technical editors often review the same materials multiple times and have their edits reviewed before the materials are printed or posted online. Only rarely will technical editors make changes and then publish the materials immediately.
Technical editing covers a surprisingly wide variety of subjects, contexts, and materials. Job ads for technical editors seek people who can comment on—and create new—paper documents, electronic documents, images, visual designs, websites, audio and video files, and multimedia presentations, just to name a few examples.
This chapter will focus on editing text on hard copy, soft copy, and websites, but it will also provide you with concepts and techniques that you can use in graphics-heavy and multimedia editing tasks.
The way you go about editing technical materials will depend on multiple factors. You will need to consider the artifact you are editing—is it mostly text? does it contain visuals? is it mostly visuals? is it paper-based or in electronic format? does it contain multimedia content? is it static or interactive?—and the type of edits that you are responsible for making. Even so, you can use the same general strategy when approaching most technical editing projects:
Sometimes, you and the technical materials' creator will work inside the same organization. In this case, your job title and job description likely already define your relationship with the creator, and both you and the creator will have set responsibilities and deadlines.
Other times, you may be editing materials for a client, a person who is not your coworker. In this case, you need to write a contract that defines your professional relationship with your client.
At the least, a contract should specify
A clearly written contract benefits both yourself and your client. You will not be overworked or underpaid, and both you and your client will know what to expect and when to expect it.
As a general rule of thumb, if you are an inexperienced editor, double your estimate of how long it will take you to edit a project, and charge a per-hour or per-page rate. Once you are more experienced and know how quickly you can actually edit, you can charge a per-project flat fee.
When you begin an editing project, avoid the temptation of diving in and making any-and-all changes that you think will be valuable. Instead, find out what "level of edit" you need to perform, and stick to it.
A "level of edit" defines how "deep" you should go with your edits. Levels range from superficial to extremely deep. Many different levels of edit can exist; experts disagree about how many levels of edit are necessary and what the different levels should involve, and some types of materials may not require specific levels of edit. Even so, you can use three basic levels for most technical editing projects:
When you edit any technical materials, do multiple passes through the material, moving from the deepest to the most superficial level of edit. That way, you will avoid wasting your time on marking up or correcting surface-level problems that will be deleted anyway.
If you see a problem that is outside your responsibility as an editor—for example, if you see a logical problem but you're only responsible for fixing comma splices—note the issue and contact someone with the authority to correct the problem.
When you edit technical materials, consult a style guide or style sheet, and create a style sheet of your own.
A style guide is an existing, authoritative source that lays out rules for the materials you are editing. For example, you have almost definitely used a dictionary at some point in your life, and if you have taken a first-year composition course, you have used a writer's handbook. Both of these examples are style guides.
Many technical editors use their employers' own in-house style guides, but many technical editors also use commercially-available style guides. Some that are commonly used in technical communication include Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, the APA Publication Manual, and the Chicago Manual of Style.
Specialized style guides for highly technical subject matter also exist. If you are editing materials that require specialized knowledge, consult an appropriate style guide. For example, if you're editing documentation for factory-control equipment that will be exported to Russia, refer to The English-Russian Dictionary of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Automation.
Always be prepared to justify your edits with a style guide reference. If you make up your own rules or follow your gut instinct instead of following a style guide, your author may reject your edits, or worse, you may introduce new errors.
Style sheets are small-scale, local style guides that provide consistent, quick-reference answers to common problems. Technical editors often develop style sheets to cover separate-but-related projects or different phases of a major project, and to make sure that all the editors on a project are following the same rules.
You should compile your own style sheet every time you edit anything. Do not simply list every error you encounter. Instead, list recurring errors or problems with answers that you need to look up frequently, and alphabetize the contents to make them easy to navigate.
When you edit technical materials, do not simply insert corrections unless the edits are simple or you have explicit permission to make final decisions. Instead, write comments to the author and suggest changes.
Before you write the comments, analyze the person you're writing to. Who is the author that created the materials you are editing? How will this person react to your comments? People are often very sensitive to criticism of their writing.
When you write the comments, actively think about the words and sentence structures that you use. Some authors are more open to criticism than others, but even receptive authors will ignore weak comments and balk at rudely stated commands.
Write your editorial comments using the strategies that Mackiewicz and Riley (2003) suggest:
When you edit technical materials, your specific actions will depend on the type of editing and the materials' format.
Technical editors help develop technical communication artifacts as well as review them just before they are published. Before you begin editing, make sure you know which approach you should take.
Editing during the developmental phase is called copyediting. This type of editing may involve "shaping" the document through deep edits and multiple comments to the materials' author. Documents that are being copyedited in hard copy are often (but not always) double-spaced.
Editing during the pre-production phase is called proofreading. Ideally, proofreading should only require a superficial level of edit because it requires an editor to look for differences between the approved "dead copy" that has been edited multiple times and the first printed proof version—the "galley"—that will be reproduced and published. Documents that are being proofread in hard copy (on paper) are almost always single-spaced.
Technical editors use different types of markup on text that depend on the editing goals and the edited materials' format. These approaches are complementary, not opposite.
Procedural markup involves going through a document and marking specific changes. A common example is correcting misspelled words or deleting blank spaces. You may also use procedural markup to provide instructions for changing a document's layout and design.
Structural markup involves "tagging" sections of a document to indicate they belong to specific categories. It is akin to using the Styles function of MS Word.
You can also combine the two approaches by using procedural markup to indicate textual changes and structural markup to indicate formatting changes.
Figure 1: Procedural markup
Figure 2: Structural markup
It is becoming less and less common for editors to work in hard copy (on paper), but it still happens. You may find that editing on paper is easier on your eyes, or that until you learn how to use a program's editing tools, editing on paper may be faster.
If you do choose to print out and mark up technical materials, you should follow a few standard procedures.
Figure 3: Ambiguous markup
More and more often, technical editors work in soft copy (on a computer). Doing so lets you avoid double-handling documents, erase mistakes, revise comments and markup, track versions easily, and automate repetitive tasks.
If you edit in soft copy, you should follow slightly different standard procedures:
Editors in many disciplines use two fairly standard sets of marks that you can use to tag hard copy documents. One set is specifically for copyediting; it assumes that the edited document will be double-spaced, with lots of room between the lines for an editor's scribbling. The other set is specifically for proofreading; it assumes that the edited document will be single-spaced.
There is some crossover between copyediting marks and proofreading marks, but they are not interchangeable. Keep them separate.
Figure 4: Copyediting symbols - words and letters
Figure 5: Copyediting symbols - text formatting
Copyediting symbols - punctuation marks
Copyediting symbols - spacing and positioning
Copyediting symbols - alignment and spacing
Figure 9: Proofreading symbols - words and letters
Figure 10: Proofreading symbols - text formatting
Figure 11: Proofreading symbols - punctuation marks
Figure 12: Proofreading symbols - spacing and positioning
For a downloadable, printable, and accessible PDF of the proofreading marks above, click here: Proofreading Marks.
Most of the concepts and techniques described in this chapter focus on editing text, but they can also apply to other technical materials. This section will address ideas specific to editing visual elements.
Consider these six concepts when you edit visuals:
Use arrows, callouts, and boxes to highlight elements that a user will find important, but don't go overboard.
Compare the cost of publishing images to your printing budget. Color pixels are free, but color ink is expensive, and projects that require a professional printer can be very expensive.
Technical editors are probably not going to code complete websites themselves. Even so, you may be asked to edit and possibly create web-based content, so you need to be familiar with the basics of web technology.
Hypertext markup language (HTML) is the backbone of internet content, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a vital part of how web programmers style that content. In short, HTML tells your browser what to put onscreen, and CSS tells the browser what it should look like.
This chapter cannot go into the details of how HTML and CSS work, but if you intend to edit websites, you need to be able to "read" basic HTML and CSS and understand how they work.
Many online tutorials for HTML and CSS exist; the W3 Schools website is one of the better ones.
Websites' layout, design, purpose, and function vary tremendously, but most websites follow a set of basic concepts that you can use to evaluate and edit them. Consider these ideas when you edit websites:
One editing issue that you need to consider very carefully is website accessibility. Some issues with accessibility deal with physical or mental disabilities, while others deal with limits on users' expertise and access to technology.
A federal law called Section 508 requires all government agencies that receive federal funding to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Government agencies also want to make their websites usable for people with limited resources.
Similarly, corporations want to make their websites accessible to the widest possible variety of customers, so corporate websites should incorporate accessibility standards to accommodate these broad audiences.
As a technical editor, you may be responsible for evaluating a website's accessibility. Consider these ideas when you edit websites:
A detailed discussion of accessibility issues and goals is available online through the Web Accessibility Initiative section of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website.
The W3C also hosts a page with an extensive and frequently updated list of accessibility checkers. You may wish to use them when editing a website for accessibility.
You have multiple options for how to mark up websites. None are innately better than the others, so choose the method(s) that best fits the project and your client's needs.