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Subject:Question about the Hackos book From:"Romaine, Garret H" <garret -dot- h -dot- romaine -at- EXGATE -dot- TEK -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 11 Feb 1998 19:26:04 +0100
I am curious about the distinction made in chapter 16 of "Managing Your
Documentation Projects" between copy editors and developmental editors
(page 376). From my vantage point, most editors today no longer have the
luxury of simply checking copy. For example, here at Tektronix our lead
editor develops templates, trains peer editors, oversees the proofing
process, sits on a Design Advisory team to coach writers, and has other
tasks as well. Which all sounds fairly "developmental" to me, but it
isn't part of her job title.
Maybe I'm hung up in semantics, but have other Hackos readers tripped
over this? Are there still enough editors left that are 'simply editors'
to make this moot? Perhaps there is a detectable continuum, and Hackos
is merely arguing to get as far away as possible from the less
value-added end...but before I put my own spin on this excellent book, I
thought I'd check with 3,500 other experts...
Garret Romaine
garret -dot- h -dot- romaine -at- exgate -dot- tek -dot- com
