Janice Gelb

Senior Technical Editor -- ServiceNow
Developmental Editor -- Sun Microsystems/Oracle
Principal Editor -- Ashton-Tate
Other Experience
Education
Publications

March 2016 - Present
Senior Technical Editor
ServiceNow

October 1991 - January 2016
Developmental Editor
Sun Microsystems, Inc./Oracle Corporation

• Have autonomous editorial responsibilities for documentation projects, including serving as an editorial and authoring tools resource for writers. Projects include structural and copy editing for printed documentation, online help, wiki content, technical white papers, and online articles for Java applications, Solaris development software, StarOffice, storage software, portal server, and cloud computing products.

• Served as the project lead for several updates of an international award-winning internal editorial style guide, and also as the project lead for all editions of the third-party generic version widely regarded as an industry standard (Read Me First! A Style Guide for the Computer Industry).

• Was principal editor of an externally available Best Practices Guide booklet series, and wrote Constructing Lists and Procedures and Developing a Corporate Style Guide in that series.

• Wrote and maintain the user's guide for an SGML/XML word processing tool and Document Type Definition (DTD) and a documentation tools troubleshooting guide.

• Serve as the editorial representative on the team that developed and maintains the DTD used for published documentation, the tools maintenance team, and strategy teams for the future direction of wiki and web-based documentation delivery. Help monitor the authoring tools support alias and edit tools KnowledgeBase articles.

• Helped develop a three-day internal course to teach an XML-based word processing tool (Epic), co-taught the ongoing class, and maintained the course material. Was certified by ArborText as a trainer for our internal version of ArborText Editor. Developed and taught day-long courses for new writing groups and the India Engineering Center on the Sun Editorial Style Guide and on constructing procedures.

• Serve as editor of the Information Products division's web site, maintained a company-wide editorial resources web site, and manage the editorial group's web site. Co-created a style guide for web documents. Established a Facebook group for the division.

• Was the editorial project lead for a cross-company team (including IBM and Hewlett-Packard) developing the documentation and online help for the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). Wrote the editorial style guide and online help style guide for the project. Built writing and editing processes and schedules for use across all the participating companies. Helped modify FrameMaker templates for use in shared documentation. Helped create sample online help volume for writers.

• Received several internal project and performance bonuses, and several Society for Technical Communication (STC) documentation awards.

April 1986 - September 1991
Principal Editor
Ashton-Tate Corporation (Torrance, CA, and San Jose, CA)

• Had autonomous editorial responsibilities for documentation projects, including involvement in the initial planning of the documentation set, developmental editing, serving as a resource for writers, structural and copy editing of hard-copy documentation and online help and tutorials, scheduling, proofing intermediate and final production versions, and checking bluelines.

• Took over the writing of some manuals, including an award-winning standalone guide. Also wrote, maintained, and implemented company and project style guides; was instrumental in developing editorial and production processes. Products included business software for the DOS (dBASE, Framework), Macintosh, and NeXT platforms.

• Received several STC documentation awards.

Other experience includes positions as an academic editor, typesetter, and graphic artist.

Education: B.S. in Journalism with Honors (Editing major), University of Florida

Certified Internal Trainer on Epic, an SGML/XML tool from Arbortext

Presentations and Papers

• Presentations:
• "System Administration Documentation" Workshop Facilitator, 25th Annual Large Scale Installation System Administration (LISA) Conference, USENIX, 2011
• "WTFM: Documentation and the System Administrator." Invited speaker, 22nd Annual Large Scale Installation System Administration (LISA) Conference, USENIX, 2008
• "Updating a Corporate Style Guide: Process and Reality" (with Alysson Troffer), 55th International Technical Communication Conference, Society for Technical Communication, 2008
• Invited speaker on style guides, TECH*COMM Conference 2001

• Papers:
"Avoiding Traumatic XML/SGML Transitions: Moving to XML/SGML Without Losing Your Writers Along the Way" (Proceedings of the 50th International Technical Communication Conference, Society for Technical Communication, 2003, p. 1)


"Editing in a Single-Source Environment" (Proceedings of the 48th International Technical Communication Conference, Society for Technical Communication, 2001, p. 522)


"Establishing an Editorial Forum" (Proceedings of the 47th International Technical Communication Conference, Society for Technical Communication, 2000, p. 459)


"Making Technical Reviews More Efficient" (Proceedings of the 46th International Technical Communication Conference, Society for Technical Communication, 1999, p. 342)


"Developing a Company Style Guide" (Proceedings of the 44th International Technical Communication Conference, Society for Technical Communication, 1997, p. 469)


This page brought to you by Janice Gelb. Last updated March 31, 2017.