RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

Downing, David [mailto:DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com] snappily came back with:
> Holy misplaced modifier, Batman, you mean some technical writing
> departments don't have editors?
> 
> I can't imagine working without an editor as a safety net -- although
I
> suppose everyone here who does contracting is in that position.

Unfortunately, from the reverse perspective, I _can_ imagine working
with an editor, because, in my first TW job, I was spoiled rotten by
having an excellent editor.
Never since.

I'm not a contractor, always a captive employee, but ever since that
first TW position (where I was one of several writers along with a
graphics crew and the editor/manager), I've always been a
department-of-one.

Even in a company like my current employer, where there are multiple
TWs, we all live and work in our own business-unit silos, separated by
distance, timezone, and local culture and reporting structures.  I've
occasionally corresponded with a couple of the other TWs in my company,
but I've never met any of them. There's no Techpubs department.  None of
us has time - at least not reliably nor on a coordinate-able schedule to
edit the others' work.
 
> The only problem with having an editor is that when one editor id
> replaced with another -- which has happened many times -- you have to
> get used to the subjective preferences of the new editor.

I think I could bear up under the strain.

 
> When I first started here, I suffered a bit of culture shock
concerning
> dealing with an editor. When I do my own writing, I always wait until
I
> have what I consider a final draft to do the spell check because my
> first drafts tend to be prolix, and I don't want to waste time
> spell-checking a bunch of test that going to be cut. I didn't realize
> that when you're working with an editor, you CAN'T expect them to live
> with such an arrangement, and I caught it good.

I can understand their point. One can only compartmentalize so much when
doing a task like editing. Asking a person to ignore a major subset of
their instincts and skills is painful (to them) and also adds risk that
needful edits will be overlooked by the (painfully) muted filters.

>From your perspective, it was painful only the one time, as you tidied
up your spelling and entered a bunch of company-specific terms into the
local dictionary... right?    :-)

 - Kevin
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