Re: Tech. reviewers who copy edit

Subject: Re: Tech. reviewers who copy edit
From: "Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 17:11:19 -0400


David,

Others have made good points, but I'd like to add a slightly different perspective. If you find that a LOT of reviewers are playing copy editor, perhaps this is a sign that you are giving them documents in a bit too rough a state.

I'm always glad to have additional pairs of eyes catch stuff I missed, but I endeavor to give them something that is as clean as I can get it in the first place (rather than deferring all copyediting to the "final" pass).

This has a few benefits:

First, it avoids a lot of wasted effort on the part of multiple reviewers catching the same errors multiple times.

Second, it's a lot easier to spot one or two remaining errors in a relatively clean document than it is to find all the errors in an unedited document, so the quality of the end product is better.

Third, it removes distractions, so the reviewers can concentrate on content, which is your stated goal. They do eventually figure out that their time is better spent on substance than on spell-checking--something they often do not figure out if they keep getting rough copy to mark up.

Dick
"David Downing" <DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com> wrote:

>
>Anybody constantly have the experience of having someone agree to give
>you a technical review, then copy editing your document in addition to
>or instead of reviewing it?

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