Re: Fwd: Technical Writing - What's the catch?
Forwarding this message on behalf of Sue Gallagher.
. . .
Rahul,
I appreciate your sentiment and your problems. I'd like to
offer some insight from the other side of the planet, if I
may.
[Sue points out that TW jobs go to India because the cost is less.]
[She says that cost-savings heavily outweighs quality concerns in the minds of the executives.]
[She notes that, as the skills of TWs in India increase and the quality increases, the cost will also increase and the jobs will likely be farmed out to less expensive places.]
I agree with most of that, with one addition: when the code is being developed in India, having the writing done by people who sit among the programmers CAN be superior to having it done by more-practiced people half a world away. The writers and programmers share a lot higher proportion of culture and values than they would in the 12,000-mile separation case, so communication is likely to be better and more efficient. I say this from the vantage point of having worked the last 5 years for a company with developers in Pune, Chennai, and San Jose, and writers in both places. The India writers were definitely less mature in their profession than the U.S. writers, but were learning and improving.
Finally, Sue says:
One final comment on your writing, if I may. No, it does not
suck. It is decidedly non-native, however, and in your
efforts to expand your vocabulary, you've come very close
to using words correctly but miss the mark despite your
best efforts. I'd recommend that you attempt to simplify
your writing. All those big words are not really necessary.
And you'd do well to keep a link to an online dictionary
active and use it frequently, which is something I do myself
despite the fact that I have been speaking this language with
varying amounts of success for more than 50 years. <g>
I must agree here, as well. You were not writing a manual, and your style was not what would be expected in technical writing. Journalists and writers of fiction are encouraged to vary and elaborate their mode of expression, while TWs are encouraged to be more rigidly consistent and terse.
Your writing did suffer from common usage problems I've observed in "Indian English" -- non-standard use of articles and imprecise command of the nuances of the language. Nothing that a solid editor could not improve, but you were not being edited (except post-facto by critics on the list).
More than a dictionary is called for, though. There is a field of study termed in the U.S. "English as Second Language (ESL)." It uses the tools of linguistics as well as grammar and vocabulary to improve the idiom of persons who were not taught English by Americans (or Brits or Aussies or Kiwis). I suspect that the training program for TWs in India should include some coursework in ESL.
--
Guy K. Haas
guy -at- hiskeyboard -dot- com | gkhaas -at- usa -dot- net
http://swexegete.typepad.com/GuysBlog
Software Exegete in Silicon Valley
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