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In one manual competition, even a judge said she couldn't evaluate
a book because it was too technical!!! This from a Society of Technical
Communicators??
Any comments?
** Yeah, I don't believe a competition like that can judge much more than
grammar and graphics. Even if the judges had time, and even if the panel
included people competent to judge writing about everything from
pharmacology to farming, and even if they could figure out how to
compare a manual that only Judge Fudd understood with a manual that
only Judge Rexall understood, they'd still be missing the opportunity
to judge the manual vis-a-vis the tool or system that it describes.
But golly, a competition is so useful as an incentive and as a source
of prestige...
We feel that the true
technical writers are left out. Most of the sessions addressed commercial
software user doc writers and financial/banking inst. writers.
** Hey, I'm a commercial software user doc writer and I'm not alone on
this list. In what sense are we not true technical writers?
