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I'll delurk for a moment on this one. I am the lone editor for our
Knowledgebase team at Excite -at- Home -dot- This career progression is a bit off. As
far as hierarchy is concerned, I am on the same level as the writers. We
just have different areas to focus on. Managing editors are the ones that
you are thinking about as far as senior positions are concerned. I think of
them as half editor, half project manager.
Editing may be a subset of writing, but I look at the two career paths as
mutually exclusive. Do people cross over? Yes, but being a good editor does
not make one a good writer and the reverse is also true. As someone pointed
out, writers and editors each have to do certain aspects of the other's job.
For example, here I am the copy, style, and graphics editor. I do all of my
edits online, and often the author never sees it again even though I may
rewrite passages. However, we keep the two functions separate. When I write
a document, someone else edits it. We almost never edit our own work.
<soapbox> One of the most amusing (and annoying) things I have ever seen was
a seminar on writing for the Web at Seybold in SF. The presenter had given
us a handout with an entire section on editing your own work. It was riddled
with typos. It made it very difficult to take her seriously at that
point.... </soapbox>
As far as knowing the topic as well as the writer, I will agree only to a
point. It is important to have a clue what is being discussed in the
document, but when I was working with online Help, it became somewhat of a
hindrance. For example, it was too easy to overlook missing steps that were
"implied" and forget that the user did not know this.
My $0.02.
Brett Lunceford
Web Editor
Excite -at- Home
brettl -at- excitehome -dot- net
> Editing is a good way to learn about the topic and how to write. This is
why
> editing positions are a great place for tech writers to begin their
careers. I
> began my life as an editor. However, at some point I wanted to move on
from
> editing other people's work to generating my own.
Okay, now I have a question. The way it's always been portrayed to me by
the Powers-That-Be, and based on job descriptions in ads, the (very)
generalized writing career progression goes like this:
Junior writer
Mid-level writer
Senior writer
Editor
Doc Team Manager
There could be other intermediary positions, but Editor was always a
very knowledgeable, senior person with lots of power, near the top of
the career path.
Under the general job descriptions that are available at Salary.com, an
editor:
"Writes, edits, proofreads, and copyedits a variety of documents.
Plans and prepares stories for dissemination. Requires a bachelor's
degree in a related area as well as 2-4 years of experience in the
field or in a related area."
A senior editor has 4+ years of experience.
So, the question is, how does this work at most companies? Are editors
more senior folks who perform functions like Brent Jones described
yesterday? Are they junior folks learning the ropes like Andrew
described and functioning more as copyeditors? Is editing more of a
function that could be "mashed" together with other responsibilities? Or
is it totally variable depending on the company?
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Develop HTML-based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver! (STC Discount.)
**NEW DATE/LOCATION!** January 16-17, 2001, New York, NY. http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.
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anonymous satisfied subscriber since 1994.
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