Karl...

In my experience, the Tech Editor does it all - review, technical accuracy, etc. In the 2 books, each with 2 editions that I have written, that is the way it as been. We had the following people:

Acquisition Editor - Kicks the project off
Project Editor - Makes sure the writers, TE's, PE's, and CE's do their jobs
Production/Layout Editors - Folks that take the edited manuscript, and prepare it for production.
Tech editor - I have beaten this one in the ground...
Copy Editor - Grammer, sentence structure, etc...

At least, this is how it is at Prima. The bottom line for me is that a TE really needs to have a clue about the work they are teching.


>Hi John --
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>I am not disputing what a technical writer does. In other words, somebody could be a medical writer without being a doctor. However, at some point, somebody with the necessary technical knowledge has to validate the piece...
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>Agree???
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>Bottom line, not necessarily. If that were the strict conditions for publishing technical material, you'd rarely see original work, would you? Okay, maybe that's stretching it a bit, but there's another side to this you may not be aware of. I'm not sure you really understand how publishing works.
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>Technical editors edit. Technical reviewers review. The latter is the one making the validation call, while the former bitches at the writer about "active voice" and things like that. HTH!
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>Later... Karl