Technical editing is an iterative team effort involving one or more editors, authors, subject matter experts (SMEs), and evaluators. Each team component has specialized roles. The editor provides direction, scope, vision, purpose. Editors verify adherence to applicable style guides as well as review drafts for usability, logic, arrangement, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and design. Writers translate information from subject matter experts to written form. Writers are responsible for arbitrating content presentation between the editors’ global scope and the SME’s specific content. Changes to text during the review process are the responsibility of the writers. SMEs provide expert input on required content. SMEs also serve as a specialist member of the evaluation team to review text for currency, accuracy, and adequacy. Evaluators serve as a third party to improve the effectiveness of delivery. Evaluation is performed in a one-to-one or small group format to include clarity, impact, feasibility, and generalizations. Field trial is performed with evaluators to judge the text’s effectiveness under the targeted conditions.

The editing process is a kind of life cycle. I developed a waterfall style diagram of the production process, consisting of 6 major parts, as shown in Figure 1: define project parameters, logical design, physical design, development, implementation, and maintenance.

Figure 1: Technical Editing Waterfall

Between each step, a review is performed by the editor, SME, and/or evaluators, to be implemented by the writers. Since costs to significantly revise a document increase as the document reaches completion, the review and changes are essential before moving on to the next step.