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Quoting Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com>:
> The problem is that most people calling themselves technical writers, give
> content lip service. They say its important. They acknowledge its value. But
> they don't really invest the time or energy to make their content better.
> This is largely because these technical topics stray outside their
> comfort zone.
> And
> rather than embrace the unknown and learn something new, they make up
> excuses
> and justifications for why they don't need to know the unknown. This leads
> to
> absurd rationalizations for why writers can be totally ignorant and somehow
> be
> of value to a team.
I've also met tech-writers who seem to take a perverse pride in not knowing
their subject matter, announcing their ignorance with the sort of defiance at
getting away with something that mark the relations of some teenagers with
their parents. I remember one who boasted that all she did for API
documentation was copy and paste some comments from the source code, then coax
a programmer into writing an example or two. Apparently, her manager was no
better, since she got away with it.
Of course, production schedules sometimes mean that a tech-writer has to work
with less than complete knowledge. However, I have come around to the position
that, most of the time, anyone who has been on the job more than three months
who refuses to master the subject matter is gravely dishonest. They're cheating
their employer, even if the resulting work somehow gets signed-off. And, just
as importantly, they're cheating themselves, because they can never havethe
satisfaction of doing a good job.
I know that many people took their present jobs just to survive. Even so, how
such writers can continue to work in a state of ignorance confounds me. Quite
aside from any work ethic, having one of my many areas of ignorance highlighted
disturbs me, and I want to reduce the confusion in my brain as quickly as
possible. Evidently, I'm a much simpler soul than these writers with their
elaborate rationalizations. But that's fine - I can look in the mirror first
thing in the morning and not flinch.
--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604-421.7177
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