Technical Editing

When I "fell into" the technical editing profession more than 20 years ago, there were no or few undergraduate or graduate programs in technical communication. My learning was on the job, and I was very fortunate to work under extremely talented editors who were willing to share everything they knew. I am now a highly respected technical editor for an international corporation. A new colleague, recently graduated with an M.S. in the field, introduced me to this book, which he had used in school. The chapters on copyediting and comprehensive editing in particular are excellent; the process descriptions are right on target. I highly recommend this book for both the theory and practise of technical editing.

I needed this book for a college course. I was worried I wouldn't receive it in time for some assignments, but it came lickety-split, as they say. Thanks!

Dr. Rude was one of my technical writing professors. I recall using an early addition of this book when I was taking her class, identifying and suggesting edits as part of the class work...an instructive process. I have always found her guidelines to be clear and user-friendly. I do not agree with one reviewer's example of "handicap", as Dr. Rude was using that as an example within the admonition for caution, a sophisticated concept that was perhaps lost on the reviewer at the time. This book is agreat reference and will be very useful for technical editors in any branch of the profession.

I strongly disagree with the person who said that this book was bad. I have used this for two years in my Technical Editing course and have found it to be an excellent book. My students say they get a lot out of it. It's got great advice and very good examples/exercises. I"m very pleased with Rude's work.

Dr. Rude did a masterful job of explaining the concepts behind good writing. Reading this book improves your entire writing process by teaching the reader what he should not do when constructing any component within a document, be it a sentence, paragraph, chapter, etc. It also provides an excellent reference for copy editing symbols, defines the various levels of editing, and defines the roles that writers, editors, and publishers should have. Overall, Technical Editing has done more to improve my writing than all other writing books combine. It is a must have for your reference library and excellent for classroom instruction