Technical Editing: Resources

Writing 101. Includes a style guide review, articles on content strategy, and lots of editing-oriented topics. Writer.com

Geoff Hart on editing. Interesting articles.

Editorium. Resources and tools for MS Word.

Bay Area Editors' Forum. Resources plus jobs for editors.

Grammatika Certification. We're still researching this one. Caveat emptor!

CMOS Online . A forum provided by the Chicago Manual of Style.

Technical Editors' Eyrie. Resources for technical editors made available by Jean Weber. More than a dozen articles and many aspects of technical editing, including finding telecommuting work.

Electronic editing: Editing in the computer age. Jean Weber's downloadable book.

Editing Online Help. Jean Weber's downloadable book for students, writers, and editors who are developing online help for computer software.

Internet Resources for Technical Communicators

The Slot: copyeditor site, including the The Curmudgeon's Style Book.

Proofreading Strategies. From the Purdue University Writing Lab.

grammarbook.com. Provided by Jane Straus.

Synonyms. crosswordsolver.com

indoition.com. Quite a collection of "basic know-how, checklists, tools and links, which will help you to write create clear and concise user-friendly manuals."

Toaster-Instruction Booklet Author Enraged That Editor Betrayed His Vision

Board of Editors in the Life Sciences. Evaluates the proficiency of manuscript editors in the pfe sciences and to award credentials similar to those obtainable in other professions. According to a participant with ATTW-L, "I think that students who are serious about becoming editors and/or writers in the pfe sciences and related areas should consider pursuing their ELS certification. Many members of COPYEDITING-L have ELS certification. I did some research at a prominent health information company, and they are more interested in 'people with a science background who can write' than 'people with a writing background who can learn the science.' I think the health information industry has ramped up quickly like the TC industry has done; while there will always be people who can 'fall into' one of these types of writing jobs despite having a background in something very different, it is becoming harder for them to do so. The ELS shows prospective employers that a person has been serious about obtaining experience and knowledge related to the field. The ELS certification requires at least 2 years of editing experience, so it might be difficult for student to get at the BA/BS level. However, universities that publish journals in the life sciences might be able to attract students who are interested in becoming editors and help them work toward the ELS certification. Students who take a minor or even a double major in a science field should also be well positioned to seek this kind of work. "

COPYEDITING-L Archives. Rather than subscribe and then post a question that has probably been posted more than once, search the archives. (You have to register to access the archives.)

TECHWR-L. Articles on editing.

Grammar Refresher. From Excelsior College OWL.

Articles. From grammarly.com

Idioms That Begin with Prepositions. From yourdictionary.com.

Particles and idioms. From tribuneonlineng.com, Nigeria.

Chicago Style for the Singular They. Chicago Manual of Style's big change! Published spring 2017.

The Singular 'They' Must Be Stopped. A decidedly opposite point of view published in The Atlantic, 2013.

Gender-Inclusive Language. Provided by the Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Microsoft Writing Style Guide. Replaces the hardcopy; downloadable PDF.

Apple Publications Style Guide. 2009

MIT Writing Style Guidelines

EverySpec

Toolkit Part 4: Guidelines for Writing. U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Feb. 2020.

Editorial Style Guide. University of Wisconsin–Madison.

13 magically meticulous design style guides. Provided by Craig Stewart of Creative Blog.

McMurrey. Style sheets

JoAnn T. Hackos. Managing Your Documentation Projects. Wiley.

TECHWR-L. Similarly, search in TECHWR-L's articles and listserv archives for style guides.

Examples:

Microsoft Vista Text and Tone. Friendlying up user docs.

OpenOffice.org Authors Style Guide. Developed by Janet Swisher for an international community of volunteer authors; requires OpenOffice.org.

IBM Style Guide. This pnks to a 44-page excerpt of the 416-page version that you pay for: http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0132101300.

MIL-STD-498. One of the standard milspecs used for documentation and editing. Also, Wikipedia has an article: MIL-STD-498. Thanks to Christine Hall for these links.

Developing a Departmental Style Guide. Made available by Jean Hollis Weber.

Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications. Used to be available free as a 1077KB help file (.chm) and as a .pdf.

Wikipedia: Manual of Style.

Read Me First! A Style Guide for the Computer Industry. Unfortunately, this fine book by Sun Technical Publications you must purchase. Sun Technical Publications: Mountain View, CA.

The Yale Web Style Guide. Fine material from the Yale Center for Advanced Instructional Media.

Online commenting

Track changes. Produced by Shauna Kelly, Microsoft MVP for Word, Melbourne, Australia. (Includes tutorials on styles.)

Sentence diagnostic

Guide to Grammar and Writing. Provided by Charles Darling at Capital Community College.

Grammar & Usage Study Guides. From David McMurrey. Scroll to guidelines.

Plain Language for Lawyers. From Plain Language for Lawyers, Michèle M. Asprey

Clear English Could Be a Big Winner in the Facebook Affair.

Plain English Handbook. From the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Plain English Campaign in England. From the founders of the movement.

Plain Language Action Network (PLAN) . A government-wide group working to improve federal government communications established by the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established PLAN and guided by Plain English Network (PEN). (But now we need a movement to wipe out acronyms!)

American Copy Editors Society. ACES.

PainintheEnglish.com. A forum for the "gray areas" of the English language.

TECHWR-L Mailing List Archive. Click Email Discussion Group Archives.

One Look Dictionaries

National Institutes of Standards and Technology

Try jobsites like these and search on editor, editing, etc.:

indeed.com

dice.com

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