Technical editing

What technical editing is

Technical editing is the edit of specialist material by an editor who is not the specialist. The job is to make a manual, a specification, an engineering report or a regulatory submission readable by the people who use it, without any of the technical content becoming wrong. It is the only edit I sell where the constraint matters more than the improvement: a sentence that reads beautifully and is now inaccurate is a failure, not a trade-off.

On the ladder it does the work of a copyedit and some of a line edit, under a different rule about who decides. It is not structural editing: document order is proposed, never changed unilaterally. It is not fact-checking, because I do not verify that your figures are true, only that the document states the same figure everywhere. And it is not plain-language editing, which rewrites for a lay reader. Technical editing keeps the vocabulary of the trade, because the trade is the audience.

It is also not a review of the engineering, the medicine or the law. I am an editor, nothing I do replaces professional review, and I say so in writing on every job.

When you need one

When the people who use a document cannot follow it and the people who wrote it cannot see why. Installation manuals, standard operating procedures, specifications, laboratory and engineering reports, regulatory submissions, product documentation a distributor will translate. The tell is a support line dominated by two procedures, or a field team that has invented its own version of the instructions.

The second case is material by an expert about to publish more widely: a white paper, a conference paper turned into a guide, a technical page on the website. It is correct and unreadable, and the author is the last person who can see the difference.

You do not need a technical edit if the material is general business writing with a few terms in it: a copyedit is cheaper. You do not need it if the real audience is a lay customer, because that is plain-language editing. And if the only fault is sentences open to two readings, a clarity edit is narrower and costs less.

What gets looked at, and who decides

The rule is that your subject expert has the final word on anything that touches meaning. In practice that needs a method. Every change goes into one of two classes as I make it.

Class one is style. Punctuation, consistency, sentence length, a stock phrase removed, a heading made parallel. Applied and shown in tracked changes. You can reject any of them, but no expert time is needed to read them.

Class two is anything that could alter what a reader understands the document to assert, however slightly. These are never applied silently. Each goes into a query list quoting the original sentence, my proposed wording, and one line on why. The expert answers yes, no, or with a third version, and the third version is usually the right one. Where a class-two change looks obvious, I still ask. If no expert is available, the queries are delivered unresolved rather than guessed at.

Within that rule, the pass covers:

• Terminology. One term per concept, used every time, with synonyms removed rather than varied for elegance. In technical writing, variation reads as a distinction that was meant.
• Structure inside a procedure. Steps in the order performed, the warning before the step it governs, prerequisites stated before they are needed.
• Sentences open to two readings. Stacked nouns, vague pronouns and the scope of "not" are the common faults in specialist prose.
• Numbers, units and references. Units stated and consistent, tolerances written one way throughout, figures and tables numbered and actually referred to, cross-references pointing where they claim to.
• What the reader is assumed to know. The place where a specialist author skips two steps because everyone in the room knows them. Flagged, not filled in, because filling it in is the expert.

What you get

The edited document. Tracked changes, with the two classes distinguished so a busy expert reads only what needs them, plus a clean version once the queries are resolved.

The query list. The heart of the job. Every meaning-touching change as a numbered row: the original, the proposal, the reason, and the expert answer. It ends up a record of who approved what, which a regulated business will want on file.

The terminology sheet. Every term settled, with the form chosen and the rejected variants. It goes to the next author, and it stops the same argument recurring.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A Calgary firm making gas-detection instruments has a 90-page installation and calibration manual, written by two engineers, that the field-service team cannot follow. Calls to the technical line are dominated by two of its procedures.

The edit produces about 600 changes, of which 90 are class two and go to the engineers as queries. The most consequential is a calibration step: the original sentence can be read as purge before applying span gas or purge after, and the manual uses both orders in different sections. The engineers settle it, and one of them corrects my proposed wording because the sequence depends on sensor type, which the manual had never said. Warnings move above the steps they govern in 14 places. Three terms for one sensor housing become one. The manual stays 90 pages and keeps every technical term. What changes is that a technician can follow a procedure without calling anyone.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What the material is, who reads it, which standard it answers to, and who your subject expert is. No charge.
2. A named expert and their time. Before I quote, we agree who signs off and how long they can give. An hour or two across the job is usually enough.
3. A fixed price in writing. Based on length, how specialist the material is, and the likely number of query rounds.
4. The edit and the query list. One to three weeks for a long manual. Queries go over in batches, so your expert is not handed 90 of them on a Friday.
5. Resolution and delivery. Answers applied, a verification read, then the clean document, the answered queries and the terminology sheet.

What it costs

Technical editing is quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call. It costs more per page than a standard copyedit, because of the query process and the second reading it requires. The variables are length, density and how many people approve wording. The number is fixed in writing before anything starts, and the pricing page sets out the four ways I work.

What happens next

If the document carries claims or figures a sceptic might challenge, fact-checking is the next pass, and it is separate on purpose. If a version has to reach customers rather than technicians, that is plain-language editing or a change of register, quoted as its own job. Once the expert has signed off and the document is laid out, buy a proofread: layout breaks technical documents more than any other kind. This edit is complete when delivered, and nothing further is assumed.