RE: Politeness in editing (was: When the thesaurus attacks...)

Subject: RE: Politeness in editing (was: When the thesaurus attacks...)
From: "Jane Carnall" <jane -dot- carnall -at- digitalbridges -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 12:23:02 -0000

on 12/10/01 2:56 PM, Jo Baer at jbaer -at- mailbox1 -dot- tcfbank -dot- com eloquently
stated:
> I would indeed suggest the shorter words, along with a comment starting
with
> "In my
> experience..." or "I've found..." and ending with something about why
short
> words
> are better.

Edwyn Kumar wrote:
>The purpose of an edit is to give the writer solid information on how to
>increase the quality of their manuscript. Often, these suggestions can be
>blunt, harsh, straight-forward and very hurtful from a personal standpoint,
>but highly effective from a technical, grammatical and contextual
>perspective.
>I'd rather have a brutal edit, a stellar manuscript and positive reviews,
as
>opposed to a kind edit, mediocre manuscript and brutal reviews!

I've been both editor and writer-being-edited, and I agree with Edwyn: but
I'd say that it's much easier to take the brutal edits if they are
accompanied by praise for the good parts. An excellent editor of my
acquaintance once said that when she sends an MS back she always tries to
begin her remarks with some positive comment and to include positive
comments (even if just a "I like this!" through the MS). That's not always
feasible or appropriate in a tech writing situation, but if there isn't
anything positive at all to say (not even "You put in a lot of work on
this") then you have a major problem that can't be fixed by peer edits...

Jane Carnall
Technical Writer, Digital Bridges, Scotland
Unless stated otherwise, these opinions are mine, and mine alone. Apologies
for the long additional sig: it is added automatically and outwith my
control.







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References:
Politeness in editing (was: When the thesaurus attacks...): From: Edwyn Kumar

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