Re: Concurrent writing & editing

[Denise Fritch <dfritch -at- INTELLICORP -dot- COM>]

At 08:28 AM 7/28/98 -0800, Nancy Hitchcox wrote:
>I would like to hear from editors who allow authors to work in a document
>throughout the publication process. I edit proposals and am finding that,
>more and more, subject matter experts (the authors) want to continue
>working in the document (on a shared file server) until just before it goes
>to Repro.  I feel we have to find a way to accommodate their needs and
>still maintain control over the document.

Nancy, I believe that you may have over looked another part of the writing
/ editing situation. Is development cut off weeks ahead of release,
allowing the writing an unchanging product to write about and allowing you
time to edit the writer's work?

The company where I work is probably much smaller than your company. We
don't have the luxury of editors. We don't even have a pubs manager
(perhaps later this year), but are three writers in separate cities. Would
an editor have a week or more of uninterrupted time to edit a writer's
work? No. Does the writer have a period prior to release when the product
is unchanging? Again, no. With a release here last Thursday, two
programmers were still making changes to the interface the afternoon of the
date of release.

My suggestion to you is go with your writers to your pubs manager. Talk to
your manager about the time the writers need, and the time you need,
without the product changing, to accomplish your writing and editing tasks.
Then, try to get your developers to commit to giving you that time.
Otherwise, insisting that the writers provide you with a no change period
when the product is still changing is not realistic.

Best,

     Denise L. Fritch
     Sr. Tech Writer
     IntelliCorp, Inc.