Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower.—Alan C. Kay
Welcome to Compass Rose Technologies. We provide software development services and custom software applications for clients worldwide.
Technical Editing Services
Your business documents should reflect the quality of your products and services. If you have a rough draft of a project already developed, our technical editors can help you rewrite, organize, revise, fact-check, and create a coherent, readable document. A polished presentation can make the difference between a product that sells and one that fails.
What is Technical Editing?
Technical editing is, in a nutshell, a “quality control” job. Your staff, associates, and customers require documents with information that is easy to follow and understand. A technical editor helps to ensure that a document is consistent and accurate and that it is meaningful to its target audience.
Our technical editors will make sure your document is grammatically correct and accessible to its readers. They can work with computer-based training materials, Web sites, and online documentation as well as printed books, pamphlets, and white papers. They can help with computer software development; banking, legal, and business communications; or Web site development. Whatever your message is, our editors can make it cleaner and more succinct.
Who needs a Technical Editor?
In short, anyone who has written a technical document needs a technical editor to review it before it reaches its intended audience. Don’t be fooled into thinking that your spell checker or grammar checker will catch all the errors in a document. Consider this sentence: “Just bee cause ewe scent you’re document thru spell cheque, doesn’t mean its write.” The spell checker in Microsoft® Word 2003 did not find any errors in this sentence. Unfortunately, although the individual words in this example are spelled correctly, they’re not the right words for this situation. The sentence should read, “Just because you sent your document through spell checker, doesn’t mean it’s right.”
You should always have a fresh pair of eyes—someone uninvolved in the documentation process—edit your document. A new person will find errors you may have missed simply because you are too close to the material. Also, if your document was compiled from material written by several different authors, a tech editor can provide a consistent “voice” and make it appear as if it were written by one person. In general, technical editing increases the overall readability of a document.
What We Offer at Compass Rose Technologies
We will ensure your document adheres to a style sheet.
Are you tired of correcting the same errors in your employees’ work over and over and over again? Does everyone in your office use a different format for writing e-mail addresses (email, e-mail, e-Mail, eMail) or phone numbers? An editorial style sheet provides guidelines and rules for how your company will handle spelling decisions, capitalization, acronyms, abbreviations, and other matters. When should you use bold or italics? How should a business letter be closed? This is all in a style sheet. If you already have an editorial style sheet, we will make sure your document follows it closely. If you don’t have one, we can help you create it.
We will determine if your material is suitable for its target audience.
We will check:
- Overall organization and presentation
- Comprehensibility and coherence
- Word choice
- Whether it adheres to a gender-neutral style
We will perform either a substantive edit, a copy edit, or a general proofread depending on your needs.
- Substantive Editing — We will check the overall structure, logic, and usability of a document before copy editing and proofreading. We will ensure that all graphics, captions, and figures are consistent and properly identified and that the document adheres to a house style sheet or particular style manual. For electronic copy, we will ensure that all clickable links work. We will check that all necessary front and back material is present (copyright information, index, glossary, etc.). We will rewrite and reorganize sections that aren’t clear. This method of editing is often used when a document was written by a subject-matter specialist—like an engineer—and not a trained writer.
- Copy Editing — We will perform language and grammar edits as well as all proofreading tasks listed below, questioning anything that is unclear.
- Proofreading — We will search for typos, punctuation, and spelling/word choice errors that your spell checker might have missed. We will also check for correct alphabetical or numerical order for lists, verify cross-references, and make sure that numbers in the table of contents refer to the correct page. Finally, we will check the index for correct alphabetical order.
We Also Edit and Proofread Documents Outsourced to Non-Native English Speakers!
“If you are not crystal clear about what you are asking, small errors will be compounded by time, distance, and language.”—Jai Shekhawat, CEO, Fieldglass
US companies are increasingly outsourcing their software development to countries such as India, Russia, or the Philippines. While offshore labor can be highly educated, dedicated to a project, and even write the documentation in English, language barriers and cultural differences can make the resulting documentation difficult to use. The bottom line is that documentation written by non-native English speakers must often be rewritten. You should always have a proofreader or editor who is a native-born English speaker review your product before it’s released to the public. If all you require is to have your documentation undergo a basic proofread, we can help.
For more information about our editing services, write sales@compassrosetech.com.
