Technical Editor’s Role

An editor helps a writer focus on content and effective presentation and provides another set of eyes to check all the details. The partnership of writer and editor produces easy-to-use, high-quality, effective documents.

Any editor is concerned with use of language, flow, tone, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, sentence structure, consistency, and so forth. However, a technical editor is also concerned with technical content, compatibility of the technical depth with the reader’s background, and effective communication of technical information. Other areas of concern include consistent use of technical terms and symbols, and careful coordination of text and artwork. By marking text and suggesting an alternative, an editor indicates to a writer that the original might be, for example, misleading, awkward, imprecise, confusing, or incomplete.