Editing or Technical Editing; what’s the Difference?

If you ask what is technical editing then simply speaking it is a task that is undertaken to ensure the quality of a technical  document. Technical documents offer valuable knowledge that facilitates the end user to make strategic academic  decisions or to complete specific academic tasks. Technical editing also facilitates knowledge transfer as it ensures that  the document is presented in a manner that is easily grasped by the end user. Technical editing is also a tool to gather  vital inputs that can be used to improve the accuracy in terms of design and layout of the technical documentation.

A key function of technical editing is to ensure that the document created by an author is thoroughly evaluated and  adequately refined with an objective to render the document as crisp and clear, as possible. A singular aspect that  distinguishes technical editing from general editing is the subject at hand. Technical editing is exclusively undertaken  on technical, engineering, and medical manuscripts and is largely related to the academic realm. An unwritten decree  that is religiously followed during technical editing is the need to keep the target audience in mind. The technical  documentation has to be edited from the perspective of the target audience. If not, it may render the entire documentation  useless.