This conference is about users. It is about the technical needs that are growing as structured documentation makes major inroads. By combining the ideas of both the technical sides of DITA and XML with the publishing needs of technical communicators that are met by Adobe systems, we feel that this conference provides 2 focused technical days followed by 2 focused publishing and communications days. Monday and Tuesday include technical presentations on DITA and XML, technologies that are storming the gates of technical communications.

What have I learned or gained most from TECHWR-L (and other tech writer email lists)?

1) connection and communication with a community of skilled, caring people

2) continual learning about the field of technical communication and its tools from those who use them and do the job

This is a problem I have been struggling with for quite some time....how does one reduce the (negative) impact of pixelation loss when reducing the size of screen captures via Snag It?

I have no problem with this issue when rescaling smaller source images such as pop-ups, but when doing the same with much larger examples with lots of line-by-line detail, reducing these images to fit a Framemaker document is always a disaster (e.g. text in original screencaps becomes blurry or unreadable).

by Matthew Stevens (mls@zeta.org.au)
To do an effective job as a technical editor requires you to immerse yourself in the story. You need to spread your attention across all levels of the document, from word meaning to sentence meaning to overall meaning, aiming to see all levels simultaneously rather than switching between them. You need to learn and understand the story being told, and view it as a whole composed of its parts. If the parts are discordant with the whole, you will then see this. This can take effort, and is harder with longer works and with more complex studies. You are looking for evidence that the conclusions presented are supported, the facts are real and consistent, the analytical tests performed are appropriate, the statistical tests are suitable, and the authors have not contradicted themselves. When you have perfected the gestalt technique, a moment comes in a job when you think, “Yes, I understand the study.” This is an important difference between substantive editing and copyediting.

Dear Team,

I have launched a Social Networking site called Myrtle-Beach.com and will need a writer with a degree in Communications.

Where is the best place to pursue someone with this skill set?

Thanks,

David

by Jean Hollis Weber

Imagine these scenarios:

• You have started work at a new company or on a new project (as an employee or a contractor), where your work will be reviewed by a technical editor as well as by the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).
• You are part of a growing writing team, and your company has just hired an editor to join the team.
• The material you write will be part of a multi-author project, and the editor will impose a "single voice" on the results.
• You are writing articles or books to be submitted to a commercial publisher, and one or more in-house editors will be working with you to produce the final product.

If you have never worked with an editor before, you may be wondering what to expect, and what the editor will expect from you. If you have worked with an editor before, you probably have some expectations about the relationship. Whether your past experiences were good or bad, you may be quite surprised to discover that the new editor's expectations are rather different from yours. This article looks at some aspects of the writer-editor relationship and what each of you can do to get the best results out of working together.

by Jean Hollis Weber

As a technical writer, you may be asked to develop a style guide for the hardcopy and online documents you produce. Sounds easy enough. After all, commercial style guides and, potentially, examples shared by your colleagues should provide enough information to get you started. In researching your task, though, you may find a variety of definitions and explanations of what a style guide is and why companies use them. What's more, you many find that style guides don't seem to have consistencies among them that can help guide you in developing one.

by Jean Hollis Weber

Too many editors focus on the details and don't pay enough attention to the bigger picture. Editors can--and should--add even more value through substantive, technical, and usability editing.

Copyediting is important, but the details are only part of what an editor can and should be reviewing. After all, a document can be correctly spelled and punctuated, grammatically correct, use only approved terminology, and follow the style guide perfectly--and still not serve the audience's needs.