The course will focus on the role of the editor in organizational settings, including creating successful writer/editor collaboration. Students will gain practice in editing documents for grammar, syntax, organization, style, emphasis, document design, graphics, and user-centered design. The course will provide an introduction to technology for…

Discusses grammatical arthritis (an internal buildup of rules that hinders writing flexibility); four new "rules" (concerning "data is,""none are,""hopefully," and the restrictive "which"); attitudes toward English grammar; how to be a helpful editor; and where to learn about grammar. (SR)

Contrasts robotic editing with human editing (discussing descriptive grammar, periodic sentences, theme-rheme concept, right-branching, zeugma, and Irish bulls). Maintains that, for any editing that requires thinking, humans are always superior. (SR)

Discusses problems in a piece of technical writing which is very well written but has extra words and overly long sentences. (SR)

Argues that the best approach for technical editors is to abandon the language cops' billy club, listen to what the authors want to say, and give those authors friendly expertise, without rigid prescription or blanket condemnation. (SR)

Presents results of a national study in which members of the Society for Technical Communication rated the relevance of 20 selected English-usage principles that were considered to be of limited importance in a previous study involving textbook editors and communication instructors. Shows that all 20 principles were rated as important to…

Intended for students in upper-division technical communication courses and professionals in business and government who want to learn how to edit technical writing, this book describes what technical editors do and how they do it. Throughout the book are exercises that students can use as self-tests; answer keys are provided for checking work.…

Maintaining that two kinds of ambiguity--ambiguous prepositional phrases and ambiguous modification of conjoined elements--account for a large number of ambiguous sentences in technical writing, this paper presents an algebraic analysis of each kind of ambiguity. It then suggests a number of ways in which each ambiguity may be unclear. By using…

Emphasizes the need for proofreading instruction in a college technical writing class. Provides the locations of frequently undetected proofreading errors and a strategy for when and how to proofread. (RL)