Legalese: (Was Run-on sentences)

[Carol]

Amanda Geist wrote:
>
> Sorry, Carol, I've been very busy and didn't see your response.

Carol:
No problem. I've been very busy, too. BTW, my nurse educator client just informed me that both the articles I edited for her have been accepted for publication in professional journals. Hooray!
> 
> 
> Amanda responds:  It's a perfectly common word, but in my professional circles and the general usage I encounter, "jargon" is used to mean terms of art for a particular profession—something only practitioners would easily recognize—and as such, is "written around" when communicating to audiences other than practitioners. 

Carol:
And in my professional circles, both academic and editorial, "jargon" is used as a term of disparagement. We seem to be going around in circles here.

Amanda:
 >I therefore retract my initial observation, because you are using it in a way that has a specific meaning for you, but which is not the primary meaning I have seen associated with the term in my experience.  We probably have to agree to disagree on this one.

Carol:
I'm using it the way it's used in both my fields. But, yes, agree to disagree.
> 

> Amanda responds:  Whether or not a usage is "unnecessary" is subjective, and ultimately the decision of the author.  An editor's job is advisory, even a substantive or developmental editor's.  The "pseudo" technical terms you have cited may be precisely what is called for, depending on what the document is and who the intended audience is.  Or they may be inflated language or pomposity.  As an editor, you cannot dismiss them out of hand without considering the context of each document.  

Carol:
Forgive me, but I do know how to do my job, when to change and when to query. A lot depends on the client and his or her wishes. Some of my clients, like the nurse educator whose articles I made publishable, are first-time writers. Others are academics with previously published works whose manuscripts have to be edited with a lighter hand. I'm quite aware that an editor's job is advisory, and I always tell the first-time who work with me directly (as opposed to working through a publisher) that they are free to accept or reject my corrections or suggestions and that it's their book. (The professional authors are already very much aware of that. Ultimately, they're responsible for the book, and it's very much in their interest to go over the copyedited manuscript very carefully.) I would not "dismiss [technical terms] out of hand "without considering the context of each document." Either you haven't been reading my posts carefully or I haven't been clear. Either way, you've mistaken my meaning. Please don't tell me how to do my job or insult my professional integrity. I know how to use language effectively (which we both agree is the essence of good writing) and how to help others do so. If I didn't, I'd be out of a job.
> 
Amanda:
> I am a technical editor by profession, and my job is to ensure clear delivery of an effective message from the author to the intended audience. That intended audience varies greatly, as do the types of documents.  I,like most editors, use my own comprehension and perceptions of clarity as a starting point, but other considerations apply.  

Carol:
Of course--intended audience and the publisher's requirements among them. I'm not trying to rewrite my client's works to sound as if I wrote them, nor can I make a technical report into sterling, memorable prose. But I have a duty to help the writer make the writing as clear and concise and correct as possible, and, in some cases (I'm talking about fiction and mainstream nonfiction) as readable and concrete and (to some degree) colorful as well.What I do depends on the client and the project. But I always make it better than it was before it entered my hands, within the limits of the particular assignment. 

Amanda:
> My observations to authors sometimes include the caveat, "This was my perception, and here is a suggested revision—but I may have altered your intended meaning.  If your intended audience would have understood, or you had used this phrasing deliberately, ignore the edit, or contact me to discuss the perception." <snip>

Carol:
I don't use exactly the same words, but, of course, I also indicate that if a suggested revision alters the intended meaning, the client can ignore the edit or revise it some other way that solves the problem without changing the meaning. And my clients are always free to contact me to discuss suggested revisions. (Forgive me, but we both know that querying is part of the job. You don't need to tell me that, nor do I need to tell you.)
 
Amanda:  
> Sometimes it is inevitable that technical terms must be included in material for the general public.  For example, fact sheets from the government explaining environmental cleanup.  Those are often written to the eighth-grade level, but the subject matter is technical. 

Carol:
In which case, the terms are or ought to be defined. You talk about the audience as a "filter." If the audience doesn't understand what's written, or doesn't even read it (as in the terms of use for a downloaded program), the writer's (and editor's) efforts are wasted.

Amanda:
>  That is where the skill of an editor comes in, helping to connect the author's expertise with the audience's understanding—to make the communication as effective as it can be, given the context of the document.

Carol:
Exactly. However, in some cases (even in technical writing) we can also make the writing more graceful. Case in point, dangling modifiers. Yesterday, I came across a sentence (it happened to be in a memoir, but technical writers also dangle participles on occasion) that ran something like this: "Often found in cold mountain streams, my father told me that the golden trout are native to the High Sierras.) To avoid the impression that the author's father spends his time in cold mountain streams (well, maybe he does, but that's not what the author meant), I omitted "my father told me," moved the father's as authority to a more logical place, and explained the concept of "dangling participle" (a technical term, *not* jargon as my colleagues and I use the term) to the client. (I would not have done so if that had been the only dangled participle or even one of three or four; it was one of many. I refrained, however, from mentioning my mental image of the author's fisherman father floundering in a mountain stream.)

Amanda:  [Authors] are professionals, as am I, and we each bring our own expertise to the document. 

Carol:
Your authors may be professionals. Many of mine are amateurs, first-time writers or former graduate students trying to revise their theses for publication. And when they *are* professionals, they're experts in some field other than writing, which is why they've come to me for my help (or why the publisher has requested that I copyedit the manuscript--a light, medium, or heavy edit, as the case requires--never a complete rewrite, which is another job altogether).

Amanda:
> I don't expect them to be highly skilled writers, just as they don't expect me to be a highly skilled whatever they may be. I'm not there to condemn their writing failures (although I'll admit the entertainment value can be high at times).  It is a partnership. 

Carol:
Of course. I do, however, advise clients who ask me to do so on how they can improve their manuscripts. (A critique goes along with the edit in some cases.) In other cases, I simply have to meet the publisher's stylistic and editorial requirements with a minimum of commentary. Either way, of course it's a partnership--and not just between author and copyeditor if the project has been accepted for publication but between copyeditor and the rest of the editorial team, including the project editor, the production editor, the proofreader, the typesetter, and all the rest.

> 
Amanda:  
> I think I'm reacting to a perception I've been picking up from you on this thread, of "I know better than them."  It may not have been intentional on your part.  

Carol:
I see. That accounts for the perception I'm picking up that you're telling me how to do my job. I don't think this is working out very well, especially since you're telling me things I know perfectly well and in several places, I felt that you were stepping on my professional toes. I do know my job, and I have no doubt that you know yours. We just seem to have a slightly different professional philosophy, a different definition of jargon, and a different clientèle.

Amanda:
My point is that condemning authors isn't the most effective way to improve their writing. 

Carol:
If you think that I condemn the authors I work with, you're seriously mistaken. I don't know where you got that impression, but I'm starting to get irritated with and offended by your assumptions.

Amanda:
> Any editor should share their perceptions of the things you mention, to offer the author a potential audience reaction and give them the opportunity to correct it.  

Carol:
Of course. BTW, I would write "his or her perceptions" because I don't consider using plural pronouns for singular antecedents the best means of preventing sexism. Just a comment from one editor to another.

Amanda:
> But at the end of the day, whether a technical usage is legitimate," whether scholarship is "pseudo," etc., is not truly the editor's call, and the author is not necessarily wrong for disagreeing with us.

Carol:
There I would disagree with you because I'm not talking about "technical usage." I'm talking about pomposity and abstraction masquerading as technical terms--for example, "precipitation in the form of rain" when "rain" will do quite well, thank you. If I'm not sure about the meaning or necessity of a technical term and the sentence is consequently unintelligible, I will query it. But if I know the author's intended meaning and can say exactly the same thing in fewer words--more clearly, more simply, and more directly--I will revise the sentence. If it's in passive voice and I can't revise it because I can't tell what the subject should be, I'll query. If I don't know the intended meaning or if I'm not sure whether my suggested revision (all revisions are suggestions) alters the intended meaning, I'll query. But my clients and the publishers and editing services I work with expect me to improve the authors' writing, not just correcting their grammar, punctuation, and spelling, but making their writing clearer and more readable. That's what I'm paid to do, and that includes eliminating jargon as I define it.

I will say, however, that I don't edit the kinds of documents you apparently work with, and it's probably just as well. I would hate my job.

Carol, who has said everything she has to say on the subject and would appreciate it if Amanda would drop the thread