Technical Writer

You know the scenario.  You pick up a user manual or other piece of text and start reading, and a misspelt word jumps out at you.  It’s so obvious you wonder how the editor or writer possibly missed it.

It’s a lot different when you are doing the proofing.

It is hard to edit work you are close to

There are two types of closeness:

• Close to the writing (meaning you wrote it), and
• Close to the time of writing (meaning you just finished writing it).

It is always difficult to proof something you wrote yourself.  You know what it is supposed to say, and sometimes you read what you expect to read, not what is actually on the page.

Time gives you perspective.  The more time you can manage—within reason—between the initial writing and the proofreading, the more dispassionate your review will be. 

Better still, if you wrote it, get someone else to review it.

The closer to deadline you finish, the more likely you are to make mistakes

Sometimes time constraints make it impossible, but you should always try to make time for editing if you can.  A lot of errors happen because there is little or no proofing, due to the writer running out of time.

Sloppy editing

Given the choice, most of us would rather write new documentation than rewrite things we have already written.

Some people write one draft and think their document is finished.

Let me tell you, it isn’t.

It’s a rare piece of writing that comes out perfect from the first draft.  No matter how good you think that draft is, put it away for a few days and then read it again.  You will be surprised at how much you change.

No matter how hard you try, mistakes still slip through.  The important thing is to ensure they are minimal.  One error in a document is undesirable, but not the end of the world.  Or in general, it’s not, unless it’s something major like leaving leaving out a “not” in “do not press”, for example.

Someone reading your documentation may notice one typo and forgive you, but if you have three or four, they’re likely to then decide that you are sloppy, and treat the information as if it was sloppy too.

Last Modified : June 10th, 2007
Filed under : Tech Writer
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