The India Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication is pleased to announce its first learning session (for Y2008) for technical communicators on January 12, 2008 in Pune. Please note that the registrations for this session close on Jan 07, 2007.
Folks, this session is a must-attend; I personally request all technical communicators (aspiring and established alike), editors, and documentation managers to attend this session, and benefit from Sankara’s invaluable experience as an editor.
Time:
From 11:00 a.m. – 1:15 p.m. (Includes a refreshment break of 15 minutes)
About the session:
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This presentation takes a practical look at a technical editor’s job, which involves treading the fine line between responsibility and authority: delivering quality, with no authority over the deliverables and the deliverers (namely, the writers).
The term “Authority,” is used here in two senses: in terms of control and in terms of ownership. We take up both aspects in this presentation.
Editors have no control over writers as they need not nevessarily be managers. If a manager is an editor as well, the control is exercised by virtue of being a manager, not qua editor. In that sense, an editor is at the mercy of the writer to carry out the mission of delivering quality docs. To work around this problem, an editor must take on the role of a mentor, rather than escalate matters.
Further, an editor has no ownership of the (technicality of) the content. Despite an editor’s domain expertise, it is the writer (or author) who interfaces with the SMEs and experts and has greater authority over the content than the editor. While editors strive to build expertise in the domain, in the short term they should learn to defer to the author’s judgment on technical matters.
About the speaker:
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Sankara Rajanala has over 14 years of experience as a publisher’s editor, technical writer, trainer, teacher, and technical editor. He has worked for big and small companies including BEA Systems, Cadence, Citec, e-cop.net, TCS, Singapore Network Services, Tumbleweed, and is now employed with Cisco.
Sankara has an M A in English literature (University of Hyderabad) and an M Litt in English linguistics (CIEFL, Hyderabad). His interests include human – computer interactions and the anthropology of the open source community.
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Sankara Rajanala [9886312366]