Re: what to look for in a Tech Editor

["Janice Gelb" <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>]

David Brown <dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com> wrote:
> 
> Not at all--you can be a great tech writer without knowing any of that stuff.  To be a good writer, you need to be able to *use* the parts of speech and the tenses correctly.
> 
> The question was about being a technical *editor*, and for that you really should know the *names* of the parts of speech and the *names* of the tenses.
> 
> You *can* be a technical editor without that knowledge, but its absence will affect your credibility with your managers, your fellow editors, and (most important) the writers whose work you edit.
> 
> Speaking from experience, here...
> 

To add another data point, my experience has been that 
using the names of the parts of speech and tenses is 
usually not as effective as showing a writer in simple 
language or by example why a correction makes the sentence 
better. This thread has illustrated the fact that many people 
have not had the benefit of rigorous grammar training so 
providing the names is probably over the heads of many 
writers anyway. It might even have the negative effect of 
reinforcing negative stereotypes about editors.

-- Janice

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