[ATTW-L] social justice in technical editing texts?

Tue Feb 1 17:04:27 UTC 2022

The important aspect of Carolyn’s textbook is it’s comprehensive coverage
of a professional editor’s roles and skills. A lot of those skills are very
particular. Editing demands close understanding of syntax, style, and
punctuation. Some editorial tasks require complex markup and command of
style sheets, templates, and levels of edit. You won’t get that kind of
systematic detail in a collection of readings.

For what it's worth, my Writing at Work: Professional Writing Skills for
People on the Job is miraculously still in print and generating sales, with
some loyal adopters. We give close coverage to analyzing the writing
situation, understanding syntax, style, and punctuation, and it is packaged
with a set of exercises. This book does not cover the roles and specific
skills of the professional editor, but it does work very well with students
who need foundational understanding of how sentences work.

On Tue, Feb 1, 2022 at 11:42 AM Josephine Walwema <walwema at uw.edu> wrote:

> Dear ryan,
>
> I am sorry to hear that the Rude Editing text has been discontinued. I am
> responding because I am very much interested in resources for editing and I
> hope folks come through as they always do.
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> Josie
> *>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*
> *JOSEPHINE WALWEMA* PhD.
>
> Interdisciplinary Writing Program
>
> Department of English | A101 Padelford Hall
>
> https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9677-9308
>
>
>
>
> This is a public, university-owned email account and subject to an Open Records
> request through the Freedom of Information Act at any time. Correspondence
> of a personal nature should be sent to: jwalwema at gmail.com
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 4:35 PM ryan moeller <rylish.moeller at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> hi all,
>>
>> i’m currently teaching USU’s graduate-level “Advanced Editing” course,
>> and i’ve overhauled it to have a social justice focus. for example, we are
>> talking about ways that an editor acts as a reader advocate or a user
>> experience designer for texts of all sorts and across multiple modalities;
>> instead of style guides, we are investigating social justice focused
>> style guides <https://ideasonfire.net/journal-style-guide/>; and we are
>> interrogating editing practices (like adherence to “correctness” or
>> “rules") that have been shown not to help struggling writers improve their
>> writing or have been shown to have fallen out of use or favor among various
>> audiences.
>>
>> back in the before times when i was deciding on course textbooks, i chose
>> Rude & Eaton’s *Technical Editing*, (5th Edition), for its emphasis on
>> readers’ needs over correctness or grammar rules. the textbook publisher,
>> Pearson, allowed me to place the book order from their website
>> <https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Rude-Technical-Editing-5th-Edition/PGM100003100757.html?tab=overview> (that
>> in no way indicated then nor does it indicate now that the text has been
>> discontinued), my bookstore didn’t have any problem adopting it, and my
>> students haven’t had trouble purchasing the text. however, i requested
>> an desk copy through the publisher’s website twice, and i received no
>> response. when i contacted my Pearson publishing representative, they told
>> me that since the book is out of date (2014), they would not send me a pdf
>> or electronic version of the publication, nor would they request a desk
>> copy or exam copy for me. their suggestion was to look for a more
>> up-to-date textbook and sent me a link to Pearson’s entire catalog.
>>
>> leaving the problematics of customer service and maybe the error of my
>> reliance on older publishing models whereby instructors didn’t have to
>> purchase their own textbooks aside, the situation that i find myself in has
>> me thinking that i may have missed some great resources on editing over the
>> last few years. here’s a list of a few that i have become aware of and am
>> using in class to supplement the Rude & Eaton text, but if you know of
>> others, will you please DM me with those resources? i will happily compile
>> a list in my course bibliography and share it with everyone who is
>> interested.
>>
>> Anti-racist scholarly reviewing practices: A heuristic for editors,
>> reviewers, and authors. (2021). Retrieved from
>> https://tinyurl.com/reviewheuristic.
>> Baker, M.J., Nightingale, E.M., & Bills, S. (2021). An editing process
>> for blind or visually impaired editors. *IEEE Transactions on
>> Professional Communication, 64*(3), 275–287.
>> Cabezas, P., Spinuzzi, C., Sabaj, O., & Varas, G. (2020). Editing the
>> pitch: Patterns of editing strategies of written pitches in a Chilean
>> accelerator program.* IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication,
>> 63*(4), 296–310.
>>
>> Fisher Saller, C. (2016). The subversive copy editor (2nd ed.). The
>> University of Chicago Press.
>> Itchuaqiyaq, C.U., & Walton, R. (2021). Reviewer as activist:
>> Understanding academic review through Conocimiento. *Rhetoric Review, 40*(4),
>> 378-394.
>> Jones, N.N., & Williams, M.F. (2017). The social justice of plain
>> language: A critical approach to plain-language analysis.* IEEE
>> Transactions on Professional Communication, 60*(4), 412–429.
>> Meloncon, L. (2019). A Field-Wide View of Undergraduate and Graduate
>> Editing Courses in Technical and Professional Communication Programs, in *Editing
>> in the Modern Classroom *(pp. 171-191).
>>
>>
>> i’m also considering whether turning these course materials into a
>> textbook would be helpful to others of you, and whether anyone else is
>> working on Editing for Social Justice projects that i can endorse or
>> support or collaborate on?
>>
>> thanks!
>>
>> ryan or rylish moeller
>>
>> associate professor
>> technical communication & rhetoric
>> department of english
>> utah state university
>>
>> pronouns: he.him.his
>>
>>
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-- 
Steve Bernhardt
Bayside DE
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