Concurrent writing and editing, take II

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

As Mark Baker noted in response to my first post on this issue, I
probably sounded more rigid in my recommendations than the issue
truly deserves. With a tip of the hat to Mark, let me back off a
notch and rephrase: You certainly have to maintain some flexibility
in the system, particularly if substantive changes come up that
simply couldn't have been caught by the review cycle. Similarly,
there will always be important last-minute changes that are
necessary, even if they should have been caught earlier. What I
object to is institutionalizing a culture of "let's not even try to
get it right the first five times". Reasonable revisions, yes;
revisions because they can't bother to make an effort, no. In the
latter case, you'll still have to make the important corrections, but
there's no reason you should have to accept this practice. If a
particular author is giving you this kind of trouble, either steal a
leaf from that author's book and get a manager to correct the
problem, or (much, much better) figure out a way to work with the
author early in the process to make both of your lives easier. I've
done both, depending on the situation, and they both work well,
provided you're seen as a problem solver, not a troublemaker.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it
means."--Inigo Montoya