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Good points, both from you and the previous respondents. It would seem like editors are a dying breed in corporate America. That said, at a recent STC Summit I ran into a fair number of people who are editors, though nearly all (maybe all; I didn't count:) were freelance. I can't remember the last time I met an editor who is employed full time in a corporate tech comm group.
Also, you noticed something I've noticed working with a bunch of different writers. Everyone has some blind spots. I have one writer who always uses "as" to mean "because," regardless of context, another (me) who overuses "that," others who are in love with passive voice, etc. I found that my self-editing has gotten better as I learned what my blind spots are. I still use an editor for any serious writing, but now I give the editor better content to start with.
Richard
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XML Press
XML for Technical Communicators http://xmlpress.net
hamilton -at- xmlpress -dot- net
On Nov 1, 2014, at 15:35, Chris Morton <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> I've worked on a four-person tech writing team a few years ago, where each
> of us was assigned chapters pertaining to different divisions. We had an
> overseer, but he contributed next to nothing (and we had to train *him*).
> Since it appeared no one else was going to take it on, I voluntarily edited
> the final 700+ pp deliverable, providing the unifying voice and deleting as
> many instances of "particular" (one writer's crutch) as I could.
>
> For one of my current clients, they've never had a tech writer, nor anyone
> editing anything they do. It shows! They finally took on a full-time
> marketing director, but she's more of a design/conceptual person, as
> opposed to being a copywriter/grammarian. Along with the work they've
> assigned to me, I make every attempt to grab what I can on the fly and
> quickly edit it—just because I can't stand to see them embarrass themselves.
>
>> Chris
>
> On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
> wrote:
>
>> I've never worked as a tech writer or interviewed for a job anywhere
>> that had an editor.
>>
>> One of my former co-workers is a technical editor. I believe she's the
>> only native speaker in the department and the writers are all in
>> India.
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 1:57 PM, Richard Hamilton <dick -at- rlhamilton -dot- net>
>> wrote:
>>> I'm writing an article about editing, and I'm curious about what the
>> folks on this list think about the state of editing in the corporate world
>> today.
>>
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