Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Jan 1998

Technical Editing Online: The Quest for Transparent Technology

David Dayton University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez

Abstract

Now that intranets have become the new model for information technology systems, we can expect that more organizations will adopt online document review and editing procedures. This may be problematic for technical editors. Survey studies published in 1992 and 1995 found that most technical editors were still editing on paper most of the time even though an overwhelming percentage of them had access to computers and expressed a positive attitude toward using computers for editing-related tasks. In this article I review discussions of online editing in the technical communication literature to understand how online editing has been constructed within the discipline and why many technical editors remain loyal to traditional paper-based procedures. I discuss a recent call for emulating handwritten mark-up and author queries electronically and compare this “technical fix” with the collaborative online editing affordances of the latest word processors. I then discuss studies of online reading and composition whose results suggest that the materiality of hard-copy editing procedures may contribute to some inherent advantages over online emulations of such procedures, or at least foster the widespread perception that certain advantages exist for hard-copy editing. I conclude by urging an open-minded and flexible but also critical perspective toward online editing technology. Such a perspective should help make the move to online editing a more positive experience for technical editors. It might also help them define a higher-level role for editing in the information and document development process.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
1998-01-01
DOI
10.2190/5em1-r1tn-mmn3-3y6m
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
collaborative writing technical communication digital rhetoric
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (5)

  1. Yohon et al. (2004)
    Strategies for Online Critiquing of Student Assignments
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Bernhardt (2003)
    Improving Document Review Practices in Pharmaceutical Companies
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  3. Wolfe (2002)
    Annotation technologies: A software and research review
    Computers and Composition
  4. Kuhlenschmidt et al. (2001)
    Thinking in Pixels: An Editing System for Electronic Texts
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  5. Wolfe et al. (2001)
    From the Margins to the Center: The Future of Annotation
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication

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CrossRef global citation count: 7 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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