JOB

[Sharyn Mathews <editor -at- NECA -dot- COM>]

A few questions for freelance editors:

1.  How are you credited for your work in published material?  Our magazine
is about to enlist the freelance services of several editors.  Each of them
has other affiliations (and sometimes, other full-time corporate
employers); do you list these people as "contributing editors" ?  Do you
list them as Mr. James Fox, XYZ Corporation? Or do you simply list names,
and leave the credentials off the citation?  I am searching for a title,
and a way to make the credits appropriately within a technical publication.
We publish a "who's who" section once in each publishing year, and list
staff biographies and credentials at that time. Would that be the best spot
for freelance credentials as well?

2.  (I hope this isn't a prohibited question) What compensation is offered
to freelancers?  Do you pay per article edited, or per hour?  What's
(generally) the going rate?  Do you factor difficulty into some sort of
equation? That is, editing a fairly straightforward article is worth $XXX;
editing a more difficult article is worth $XXX multiplied by 1.5; virtually
ghost-writing the article is worth $XXX times 3... We are working with
technical articles, often written by people for whom English is a second
language. Generally, our editors are asked to edit for content and to
monitor the accuracy of the content, as well as editing for consistency and
readability, and to "work out" ambiguities and problems with the original
author(s) before returning the article to us for publication.

3. Does anyone know of good software that doesn't lose Greek letters and
jumble equations during transfers and conversions?  We have used MS Word,
and WordPerfect, and sometimes just transferring the file to a different
computer (but still using the same version of the same program) causes
problems!  We have also tried Ventura and PageMaker, but they are equally
prone to problems, especially when it comes to Greek letters.
This is one MAJOR problem I foresee using freelance editors.  I am
concerned that the articles simply won't be transfered intact--in either
direction.

Any help will be GREATLY appreciated!  Reply to me off-line at
<editor -at- neca -dot- com>.  TIA

Sharyn Mathews
editor -at- neca -dot- com

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html