RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question

Subject: RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question
From: "Dick Margulis" <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 11:12:33 -0400

Jeff Hanvey wrote:


>
> If I'm putting something together, like a piece of furniture from a kit, I usually just jump in and ignore the instructions, since they're usually worthless anyway (No offense to writers of these - If, indeed, anyone does write them).

I think this, like the rest of the survey responses, goes to "learning styles"; I've hypothesized in this space before that a significant number of people are drawn to tech writing precisely _because_ we like to watch one, do one, teach one--or else we like to just jump in and start twiddling--rather than read about it first (not all of us, of course, just a significant fraction). We'll see if the poll results tend to confirm or negate my hypothesis.

In any case, Jeff, your comments about your approach to assembling things from parts speaks to an approach that is orthogonal to mine. I've only been successful with kits when I spread out the parts, open up the instructions, and start at step 1, being careful to read all the cautions and all the sidebar tips. In fact, I usually try to do these projects (if they involve more than a handful of parts) with a helper, just to double check that I'm doing it right.

I guess you can tell that when I took that battery of vocational aptitude tests in junior high, my mechanical aptitude was, um, unimpressive. It's for dolts like me that they print those instructions, and I'm glad they do!

On the other hand, gimme a graphics program with 4,000 menu commands, and I'll jump off the high board without even looking for water in the pool, let alone unpacking the manual. ;-)

Dick

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

Sponsored by Information Mapping, Inc., a professional services firm
specializing in Knowledge Management and e-content solutions. See
http://www.infomap.com or 800-463-6627 for more about our solutions.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: Re: re Relevancy of grammar? Techwr-l tie-in!
Next by Author: Re: Kit furniture manuals (was TECHWR-L poll question)
Previous by Thread: RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question
Next by Thread: RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads