Learning how to edit
Listserv summary article compiled by Michelle Corbin
In the middle of September, I posted the following questions to the STCTESIG-L listserv, the Technical Editing SIG discussion list:
- How did you learn to edit?
- What courses did you take to learn to edit?
- Did you take online tutorials?
- Did you take a local community college course?
- Did you read a book?
- Did you teach yourself “on the job”?
The most popular answer to these questions was college courses, community college courses, or certificate classes – in editing but also in writing as well. Many people reported that learning how to write well helped them learn how to edit well, and that understanding the writer’s perspective was critical to being a successful editor.
The most interesting (to me, anyway) answer to these questions was a programming course or a course on the technical subject matter that the text is written about. Understanding the technology or subject matter, at least to some degree, does indeed make someone a better technical editor, and I can definitely see how it helped someone learn how to edit.
Here is the complete list of ways that our SIG members learned how to edit:
- College courses, as part of Technical Communication degrees
- Community college courses
- Educational courses on the technical subject matter
- As part of a newsletter staff
- From exercises in books
- STC conference sessions
- Sentence diagramming (You can search for many different STC conference proceedings papers on editing sentences and sentence diagramming on the STC Conference proceedings site: http://www.stc.org/pubs/proceedSearch01.asp)
- Rules or Myths: The Changing English language (You can find Karen O’Keefe’s session materials on the STC Conference Web site: http://www.stc.org/53rdConf/sessions/session.materials.asp, and you can probably search on each of the conference session materials site for more presentations on editing)
- On the job, trial and error, internships
- Mentors, on the job and within professional organizations
- Being edited, by peers and by professors
- Reading, anything and everything
- Practice, practice, practice, consciously and unconsciously
- Grammar books
- Style books (Chicago Manual of Style, AP Style, any style book really)
- Discussion lists
- EEI Communications, and their selection of courses:
http://www.eeicom.com/onlinetraining/index.html - U.S. Department of Agriculture courses: http://grad.usda.gov/search.php?searchtype=simple&searchterm=EDIT&action=search
In answering these questions about how they learned to edit, our SIG members often paid homage to their favorite grammar books, style books, or other editing resources that they used. I also compiled a list of those resources, which we hope to publish very soon.
Meg Chaffin said,
April 27, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I learned to edit by including writing and editing courses in my Community College curriculum. My employer also funded a number of tech editing courses, one day or longer, given by visiting experts at the same Community College I was attending. Much of what I learned was a kind of “I already knew that. Thanks for pointing it out.” In addition, I read various books on grammar and style. The favorite at work, the one we all referred to, was the Gregg Reference Manual. I used to consult regularly a website, TheSlot (a spot for copy editors). Going to work at the age of 54, doing secretarial work, I found myself doing a good deal of tech editing as part of my regular job. Later, as I realized how much I enjoyed the editing and how easy it was, I began editing engineering documents. Pretty soon the work was coming to me unsolicited. Now that I’m retired, I still do tech editing in my volunteer work at my church. I recently edited a 400-page novel for a friend, which was published in January ‘06. This may be more than you asked for. Anyway, I do enjoy reading about what other editors are doing.