#Warcraft 3 world editor experience gain professional
These changes, combined with the increase in outsourcing and casualization of editing tasks, mean that editors and proofreaders must “more than ever be aware of their professional attributes and capabilities, adaptable to changing work contexts, and proactive in managing and marketing their expertise.” Now the question is whether they should add social media to the list of their skills. ĭigital publishing workflows are said to promote “higher editorial accuracy, higher production standards and greater cost and time efficiencies,” but at the same time they have expanded editors’ responsibilities and increased the risk of professional isolation. Since the late 1990s, when Microsoft Word’s track changes, macros, and other functions revolutionized the way books were edited, workflow technologies continue to expand and nowadays editors are no strangers to design, formatting, and web authoring software. Digital technologies have been transforming the way books are written and published ever since computers, the Internet, and email were first introduced in the early 1990s. While the use of social media by publishers, booksellers, and authors has been the subject of many blog posts and magazine articles, it has attracted only a modest amount of research so far, none of which has investigated whether using social media tools is worthwhile and effective for editors and proofreaders.Įditors and proofreaders are accustomed to keeping up with ever-changing computer-based technologies. With more than 850 million active users on Facebook and more than 50 percent of them logging on in any given day, it is not surprising that authors, publishers, and booksellers explore social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms, to connect with readers.
Requiring little or no technical expertise, social media is redefining roles within the publishing industry, allowing publishers and authors to reach and engage with readers directly. There is little doubt that “social media is embedding itself” in our society and changing the way we live, learn, and work. Other concerns, and indeed barriers to the adoption of social media, are linked with the blending of professional and private identity, the merging of working and personal life, and issues surrounding privacy and author’s confidentiality. Moreover, they are considered to be time consuming and distractive.
While social media tools are seen as easy to use, their perceived usefulness varies. The results of a survey of 330 editors and proofreaders indicate that the use of social media tools is motivated chiefly by the interpersonal utility and information-seeking behavior. The second part critically evaluates the positive and negative aspects of using social media tools for work and explores practical implications. The first part is a descriptive study of users and uses of social media in the context of editing. The aim of this paper is to investigate how editors and proofreaders use social media tools in their work. Abstractĭespite the exponential rise of social media use in the publishing industry, very little is known about its impact on the editing profession. We are social and the companies that we work for are social and there is a growing awareness that we need to weave the social media DNA into the fabric of the corporation. Social media is embedding itself in the human DNA as we connect and interact globally in an increasingly mobile social web.