Editing - The Core of Text Engineering

Many gifted engineers and scientists are also fine writers, but quite a few would prefer to leave the careful organization and presentation of their ideas to another professional - a Text Engineer.

Editing is a Text Engineer specialty. Put simply, it is the discipline of hammering out taut, lucid text from client drafts. TE first hones the mechanics meticulously, then checks cross-references and graphics. Concurrently, we evaluate the document's structure, flow and logic.

Why a Specialized Editing Function?

Managers, engineers and editors are all detail-oriented, but oriented to different details.  The editor's unjaded eye finds unintentional errors in complex engineering documents that other reviewers miss.

Often you are simply "too close" to that writing project that has monopolized your waking hours for weeks, and need someone who can give it an unbiased look, free of the mental fatigue you have acquired over it. Apart from the stylistic and organizational improvements a professional editor can make, we can root out those little slips to which even the most talented among us fall victim.

It is quite easy to allow tiny editorial errors to creep into your work that you overlook because you know what the document is "supposed to" say. We all do it - you replay the thoughts in your mind rather than reading the words on the page. Even assuming you laboriously spell-check everything, you probably will not catch all these "blind spot" mistakes. Here is an extreme illustration of this phenomenon.

Extend Quality Assurance Plan to Publications

Technical editing is a task not many people do well, but enlightened editing is what allows readers to glide easily through a complex document with full comprehension. In a safety- and quality-conscious corporate culture, clear and logical writing is essential. TE has benefited from corporate QA training and knows how to refine documents to meet the new demands.

TE editors can assemble numerous document sections from a host of authors, all with disparate styles, and create a winning finished product with that "one voice" consistency so critical to a convincing presentation.

Contracting with TE for document quality reviews is a logical extension of the QA principles that govern other aspects of your business. Quality improvement in publications complements, and even drives gains elsewhere, with better information flow across all levels of the organization. Clearer documentation and better-targeted marketing literature can significantly boost sales and customer satisfaction.

Text Engineer is an advocate of strict document revision control and can help you implement a strategy to coordinate and track revisions efficiently. Business-wide document management helps to regiment the authoring process, eliminating configuration errors by keeping all contributors current, and enhancing your professional appeal with customers.

ISO 9000 Certified?

Whether your company is today pursuing certification under ISO 9001:2000 or already has an established and vibrant quality management system, Text Engineer will help ensure that procedures, specs and plans all measure up.

The TE professionals spend many hours reviewing everything from technical papers to multi-volume proposals, to software requirements specs. They quickly find and correct the unintentional errors that peer reviewers may miss - transpositions, tense shifts, spellos - so that the finished document is clear and polished,  worthy of its author.

TE also offers careful review of contracts and other legal documents, and has developed the commercial sense to flag potential pitfalls that could cause disputes during execution. These and all your other critical business documents demand a Text Engineer quality review.

Writing coaching has become a burgeoning segment of communications services, and Text Engineer is fulfilling a vital role. We consider it a sort of "interactive editing" with constructive critique and instruction springing from writing samples you provide. It is a tool for internal quality improvement that will pay rewards for years, as your staff gain writing proficiency and confidence. Follow this link for further details of TE's writing coaching and critique service.

Writing for International Audiences

As stated on the homepage, Text Engineer has a keen sense of how to hone and package documents for an ESL audience. TE excises ambiguity and colloquialisms that impair comprehension, leaving only tight, high-impact prose that international partners and customers understand readily. For the record, TE has scored this diplomatic coup in Taiwan, China, Korea, Turkey, Sweden, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and yes, Great Britain.

Conversely, TE capably reworks and polishes English writing from international organizations targeting an American audience - consumers, b2b, regulators, or the media.

Style Guide

TE can use an accepted commercial style manual of your choice (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style), or draw on these resources and your input to produce a customized manual just for your company, to help you achieve writing consistency across all communications media. You will find this consistency to be invaluable for delivering a uniform message and building corporate image. See the sample writer's guide here.

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