Re: What to look for in a technical editor

["Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- editors-writers -dot- info>]

From: "Dick Margulis" <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>

: 
: 
: Bonnie,
: 
: I cannot argue that you were trying to say something different, but I 
: hope that neither you nor Bill really wanted to say what Bill said.
: 
: I am not arguing for ignorance on anyone's part, least of all the 
: editor's. The scenario Bill has proposed, if I understand it correctly, 
: is this:
: 
: An editor encounters an ungrammatical and therefore ambiguous and 
: therefore logically meaningless string of words (not technically a 
: sentence). The editor moves a comma, rendering the string of words into 
: a well-formed sentence that has an unambigous meaning. This, somehow, 
: causes text that was formerly technically correct to become technically 
: incorrect. Therefore, Bill and you conclude, the reader is better served 
: by the unedited text.
: 
: Am I missing something?
: 

I don't think so, Dick. The point is that it's very easy for an editor who doesn't understand the product to correct a sentence and change the meaning. What the editor may think is a logically meaningless string of words may be that -- but it may also not be that at all. It may be meaningless to the editor only. 

In the case of sentence fragments, of course, there's no question they should be fixed, but I think Bill is talking about an editor unfamiliar with the product correcting for grammar without any appreciation of the possibility that meaning is being changed also. 

I remember a junior editor coming in to PTC once who began taking apart text in help topics for grammar. We had to let her down gently. 

Sometimes, also, there are, shall we say, awkward phrases that cannot be "corrected" and should not be, because they convey a precise meaning and are perhaps variant, but not wrong, per se. 

In a sense, I am arguing both sides, because while when at Artisoft, I knew the product, in my current freelancing role I know little about network technologies. But I know where to look to find out whether anything *needs* changing at all. The problem would be if I were not to do that -- I'd last about a minute with this company or any other.

___________________________________
Bonnie Granat
Granat Editorial Services
http://www.editors-writers.info






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