RE: What Are Writing Skills?

["Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>]

Tony, I think it's interesting that the parts of my thread that DID explain
things, you ignored. Again, as you have every time I've posted.

OK, I join everyone else. This is it, I'm giving up after this and it's not
because what we are saying has no meaning. You really are not listening,
you're just being right, you have little interest in learning anything here:

Re the books on Amazon: No, Tony, you are making an error. The books don't
say that, the WRITE UP ABOUT THE BOOKS say that. You actually know little
about the contents of these books because YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOKS. You
read the SUMMARY of the books. Most of those books indeed probably do have
the general steps you are looking for. But you have to READ the books to get
that info. Again, you have missed the point of the discourse, this time the
discourse with the books.

Recommended steps and techniques are in the books and in my classes. Hearing
about my classes and reading summaries of books is not going to get you the
information you want. You have to delve into the discourse and learn. You
can't skirt the edges, throwing rocks at it and say you did anything towards
understanding or learning.

Participating in the discourse, in other words, LEARNING about technical
writing requires that you get off your point and be receptive to new
information. Which you are not.

You are interested in pushing DFDs and telling us you have the Answer. OK,
then I also submit. You win. We are all smoke and mirrors. The emperor has
no clothes and you were smart enough to figure that out. How clever of you.
So what have you won?

Your refusal to learn has won you the disdain of several thousand people who
would have helped you in the future and probably cost you your next 2 jobs,
as most people have no interest in hiring someone who won't learn in an
occupation that requires we learn.

When your next perspective employer Googles you, this thread will come up.
And what they will see is a refusal to learn and a willingness to beat
people to make your point. Not a team sort of player. An illogical argument.

But, wow, you did show us the emperor has no clothes. You did get to be
right. And we all learned several important things...

(I have a cold and little coffee in me yet...Blech)

sharon

Sharon Burton
CEO, Anthrobytes Consulting
951-369-8590
www.anthrobytes.com
President of IESTC

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Markos [mailto:ajmarkos -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 5:18 PM
To: Sharon Burton; TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: What Are Writing Skills?



--- Sharon Burton <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com> wrote:


> I searched on
> Amazon and found some 51 hits, as I recall, on the
> phase: structured
> "technical writing". Surely, something in there
> would tell you something
> that you don't already know about technical writing.

Sharon:

I looked at the first seventy of these.  The only
thing these books say about structured writing is,
basically, "Ya gotta have structure".  The offer
nothing in terms of saying: "Here are the recommended
steps to structured writing."

Sharon Burton:

> No one can give you specific steps that will result
> in excellent product
> documentation every time, Tony, and you know that

Tony Markos:

How about recommended steps and techniques?  There has
to be more to structured writing than statements
expounding "Ya gotta do it" and fluffy comments about
it being a "concept" or "way of thinking".

Sharon Burton:

...the specific steps for finding out and structuring
and presenting to the user each manual are different
because you have different work environments,
different audiences, and different needs.

Tony Markos:

Ok, so there is no such thing as a structured approach
to writing.  Seems you agree that SR is just "blue
smoke and mirrors".  My original question, Sharon, was
"What Are Writing Skills?".  I was told that the
"meat" of writing skills is structured writing.  Are
writing skills then "blue smoke and mirrors"?




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