Re: Basic rules of technical writing

Subject: Re: Basic rules of technical writing
From: Mary Moore <mmoore -at- BANYAN -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 21:26:47 GMT

In article <D1CpFF -dot- LM8 -at- news -dot- cis -dot- umn -dot- edu>
litt0023 -at- maroon -dot- tc -dot- umn -dot- edu (Joseph J Little) writes:

> Chris Benz wrote:

> >> The Golden Rules of Writing
> >> 1. Make it understandable.
> >> 2. Make it consistent, unless that interferes with Rule 1.
> >> 3. Make it grammatically correct, unless that interferes with Rule 1 or 2.
> >> 4. Make it technically correct, unless that interferes with Rule 1, 2, or
> >> 3.

How about this:

1. Make it understandable.
2. Make it technically correct. If that interferes with Rule 1, keep
trying.
3. Make it consistent, unless that interferes with Rule 1 or 2.
4. Make it grammatically correct, unless that interferes with Rule 1,
2, or 3.

Why? As someone already said, it's of no use if it's not
understandable.
However, "technically correct" must come next, because it won't help if
it's consistent and grammatically correct if the information is false.
As someone else already pointed out, though, it doesn't have to be
technically *complete* -- you can leave out technically correct details
if they aren't useful to the reader (although I'm the type who prefers
to put it in an appendix because there's bound to be a few users who
want to know it and will call Tech Support screaming for the info.)

For 3 and 4, though, I'm torn about which is more important,
consistency or grammatical correctness.

====================================================================
Mary M. Moore (mmoore -at- banyan -dot- com)
Sr. Technical Writer

All opinions I express here are strictly my own and do not reflect
the opinions or policies of my employer.
====================================================================


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