The best technical writing is produced not by technical writers alone, but in partnership with technical editors who have highly developed editing skills.
ProEdit’s technical editors ensure that technical documentation is clear, concise, and accurate. Together, our writers and editors convey complex technical information succinctly and effectively to meet the needs of your target audience.
What Is Technical Editing?
Technical editing is the proofreading, line editing, and/or copyediting of technical documentation. This includes user manuals, policies and procedures, web pages, proposals, wiki articles, and many other types of technical content. Technical editors look for errors in spelling, grammar, and usage, as well as inaccuracies in content, voice, and formatting. They may also make suggestions for improving clarity and readability. Technical editors also compare the technical content to style guides to ensure that items like document headings and templates are applied correctly. Technical editing is an important part of the editing process for technical communication.
How Is Technical Editing Different than Technical Writing?
Technical writers create technical content after meeting with subject matter experts (SMEs) and reviewing source material, such as functional specifications, software, or processes. Technical editors provide editing of the content written by technical writers. They perform different levels of editing, such as substantive editing, developmental editing, copyediting, proofreading, and editing for usability.
Technical writers are adept at learning new material quickly, making complex content easy to understand and enjoyable to read, and organizing the material, while technical editors improve the language, flow, readability, and format of the deliverable to best serve the target audience. Professional technical writing always includes technical editing and revising.
How Do ProEdit’s Technical Editors Work?
Our technical editors work alongside our technical writers to review content. ProEdit’s technical editors use software tools like Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat to edit technical documentation. They also use editing checklists to check for spelling, punctuation, grammatical, and usage errors. Our technical editors have mastery of several style guides, including but not limited to the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the Microsoft Writing Style Guide.
What Is Included in ProEdit’s Technical Editing Services?
ProEdit’s technical editors perform the following services to improve the quality of your technical content:
- Check for spelling, punctuation, grammatical, and usage errors.
- Revise run-on sentences, wordiness, awkward constructions, and vague language.
- Address biased language.
- Evaluate the logical flow of information to make your content clearer and more effective.
- Ensure that the content adheres to the appropriate style guide.
- Enter corrections in Microsoft Word files (directly or via Track Changes) or Adobe Acrobat files based on client preference.
Additionally, ProEdit’s technical editing team is often called on to create templates, format technical documents, and use graphic design and other visual elements to improve content readability. Because they are proficient in English, our editors also rewrite client user manuals.
When You Need ProEdit’s Technical Editing Services
Here are a few scenarios when you might need ProEdit’s technical editors:
- Technical writers on your full-time staff created a user manual, but the nomenclature is not consistent and the voice changes from chapter to chapter.
- You need to update your knowledge base or wiki articles after a system upgrade.
- Your intended audience has provided feedback that your technical documentation could be more effective.
- Your web content needs to be optimized for SEO keywords.
Call 888-PROEDIT today to find out how our technical editing services can help you!