Re: Variety in Tech Writing (was: Display, Displays, or Appears)

Subject: Re: Variety in Tech Writing (was: Display, Displays, or Appears)
From: Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
To: Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:44:25 -0700

Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> If I
> clicked on "File" and didn't get the dropdown list, or
> on "Print" and didn't get a print window my first
> thought would be that either (a) the program wasn't
> working correctly, or (b) the writer of the instruction
> wasn't.

The ambiguity you're now coping with is why a statement of the correct
result is valuable. The writer could write herself out of your train of
doubts, focusing your attention on the problem by adding the result
dimension to the instruction:

>> 3. Choose print options from the print window.
The Print dialog box appears.

>> 4. Click "OK" to print.

I read the absence of a result as indicating a bored, lazy tech writer.

Finding a bored, lazy tech writer in the manual is, like finding body
hair in the jello, a just cause to stub out a butt in it. "It" refers to
the jello or manual, but further signs of undisciplined tech writing
might make me want to shift that focus to the writer.

If the discussion is about trivial instruction writing, then I disavow
what I am saying. I hate even thinking about the boredom and ennui I
experience writing trivial stuff for n00bians. I've poned whole herds of
them from moving trains, I'm full up, can't take no more.

Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com


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Re: Variety in Tech Writing (was: Display, Displays, or Appears): From: Gene Kim-Eng

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