Reply: How much knowledge is enough/too much

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

     Glenda Jeffrey wrote: <<I would like to know just how much "technical
     savvy" I should be able to expect from a professional technical
     editor.>>

        The cliched answer is that the difference between a "technical"
     writer/editor and "the other kind" is that technicals understand what
     they're editing and the others don't. (Don't shoot me... that was
     intentionally sarcastic!)
        A better answer is that it's damn near impossible to edit something
     you don't understand. You needn't understand as much as the engineers
     do, but you must understand enough to converse knowledgably with them.
        The best answer is that you must understand as much as your
     audience does... that way, if the writer says something you don't
     understand, you can be sure that the audience won't understand it
     either. I go one step further: if I can understand it, but have to
     work at it, it's likely that some of the audience won't be able to
     work through the logic at all and will misunderstand.
        There's one problem with these answers: by the time you understand
     something thoroughly, you start making the same assumptions that the
     writers make, If the audience doesn't share those assumptions, they
     won't understand. The risk of overfamiliarity is that you stop being
     an advocate of the audience. To hedge my bets and provide a safety
     margin, I role play (pretend) being stupider than I really am. (This
     isn't always easy... double meaning intended!) If playing dumb makes
     it harder to understand what the author is saying, I revise. Note that
     I _don't_ play dumb with the author; I pretend that I'm a
     below-average member of the audience. A very subjective business, but
     it seems to work well.
        BTW, most editors are in the business because they like learning
     new things. If you've got a problem with one of your editors, talk to
     him/her and try to explain. Interestingly enough, the act of
     explaining something reveals whether you really, truly understand what
     you're trying to explain. Lots of neat insights come that way!
     --Geoff Hart  #8^{)}
     (The Forrest Gump of editors? Perhaps a mite too hairy...)