Re: Fwd: Re: Books On Engineering Tech Comm vs Crafting Tech Comm?

Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Books On Engineering Tech Comm vs Crafting Tech Comm?
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 15:51:24 -0500




Tony Markos wrote:

Dick:

The book's title is "How To Write Usable User
Documentation", (by Edmond Weiss).

Thank you.

I am trying to
identify other books that compare an engineered
approach vs a crafted approach to TW.

Granted, few TWs are pure in one way or the other -
although one's tendency is readily apparent.



Tony, I reject your premise that there are two divergent ways that an individual might cleave to. One can be better organized in one's anaysis and subsequent chunking or one can be more poorly organized. But someone who is poorly organized is not going to go off and advocate poor organization as a way to do tech writing; they are going to strive, either by dint of their own motivation or because someone else motivates them, to be better organized the next time.

By the same token, a well organized document that is poorly crafted is going to be less successful than one that is well crafted; someone who lacks craft skills is either going to strive to improve those skills by dint of their own motivation or because someone else motivates them. With the exception of people who are trying to rationalize their own lack of skill by disparaging craft, people with less skill do not generally advocate craft-free technical writing.



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Re: Fwd: Re: Books On Engineering Tech Comm vs Crafting Tech Comm?: From: Tony Markos

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