Technical writers are often responsible for creating and maintaining multiple documents. In organizations where a formal editorial review is integral to the documentation process, technical writers who own multiple documents might need to address a huge volume of editorial input, often received late in the documentation cycle. What do all of those editorial comments, when taken as a whole, really mean in terms of the overall quality of the document? Lots of red ink might mean either that the document is in bad shape or that the editor loves to explain every comment, however minor, in great detail. On the other hand, a short comment buried on page 63 might turn out to be the single most important editorial value-add for the entire document!
The problem
Is there a way to summarize pages and pages of editorial review comments into a single meaningful quality metric?
Such a metric would enable technical writers who own multiple documents to decide how much time they should set aside to revise each document that comes back from editorial review. The metric would also enable managers of technical publications departments to assess the overall quality of all the technical writers’ first drafts in the department. Technical writers and their managers can collect the metric over time and use it to identify trends in writing quality and, where required, take corrective measures to improve the writing. In addition, the metric, when collected over a period of time and analyzed, could reveal anomalies and patterns in editorial behavior, which can be used to tune and strengthen the editorial process.
This article describes a process ...
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