Re: He said...She said...He said...etc. (Was Re: What's A TW Got To DO To Get A Job Around Here?!)

Subject: Re: He said...She said...He said...etc. (Was Re: What's A TW Got To DO To Get A Job Around Here?!)
From: Brad Jensen <brad -at- elstore -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 23:17:27 -0600


----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Plato" <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Cc: "Melody Akins" <melodyakins -at- hotmail -dot- com>
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2002 11:19 PM
Subject: Re: He said...She said...He said...etc. (Was Re: What's A TW Got To
DO To Get A Job Around Here?!)


> --- Melody Akins <melodyakins -at- hotmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
> <meta-argument snippage>
>
> > Must we all 'become' doctors, or scientists, or engineers, or software
> > designers, in order to write in those fields?
>
> Yes, to some extent. You need to know the topic. If you're going to write
about
> programming, you had better understand programming and be a bit of a
> programmer. Not a expert one, but you have to have some skill in doing the
> work.
>
> How could you possibly write a user manual, for example, for a programming
tool
> if you didn't understand how to program? Sure, you could do the work, but
> without any programming skills, you would have absolutely no way to
evaluate
> what information was relevant, useful, or accurate. In this case, why
would
> your employer even have a writer? If the SME has to write up everything
and
> contribute all the content, why have a writer at all? The SME is doing all
the
> "writing."

It seems to me if you are editing, you are being an editor, and if you are
writing, you are being a writer.

But Andrew is right about technical writing for software tools. You had
better know big-endian from little-endian when you do that.

Otherwise the rocket ends up in the ocean (which happened in the sixities
when a non-tech keypuncher moved the decimal point over one position.)

You always need context. The picture is always bigger than the frame. Most
of us have enough shared context to get by except in very technical
specialties.

Brad Jensen



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Re: He said...She said...He said...etc. (Was Re: What's A TW Got To DO To Get A Job Around Here?!): From: Andrew Plato

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