Re: Do I have to understand the material?

Subject: Re: Do I have to understand the material?
From: DaveC <voicebox -at- dnai -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 12:03:59 -0700


I don't think the real question is "do we have to understand the material?";
what's more important is figuring out how much we have to understand before
we can communicate well with the reader. You can't consistently succeed if
you don't have at least a basic understanding of what you're describing, but
by no means do you have to be an expert in the field to communicate well. In
effect, you adopt a role in which you understand more than the reader (which
is what lets you teach them things they don't already know), but not so much
that you yourself become an expert and can no longer talk to the reader.

I agree. You need to be a handful more expert than your target audience. There will always be a segment of the audience who is more expert than you are, but that's so with every document.

You need to be able to be one notch up on the subject matter beyond the readers.

Dave
--
Dave Carpenter

Whatever you wish for me,
May you have twice as much.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke



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References:
Do I have to understand the material?: From: Hart, Geoff

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