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Subject:Re: Reading a draft for content only From:"David Blyth @second" <dsb -at- ALSYS -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 9 Feb 1995 13:37:16 PST
Vince Putnam said...
>Many TECHWR-L posts have stated that the Technical Writer is the
>author. This attitude is no doubt coming from the enormous amount of
>effort we TechWriters put into the formatting, graphics, and digging
>for the missing info. Why then should the content person take credit
>as the author?
I take credit as the author when I really am the author. That is, my
work often requires I write the original draft of the entire document.
I also research missing info, do the formatting, design the graphics,
and develop my own tables. I even run the spell checker.
When I want a review for content only, I really want a review for content
only. This doesn't mean that I won't fix other errors. It just means
that I don't want the reviewer to _focus_ on grammar and spelling.
In general, I want the reviewer to answer these questions, in this order:
1) Am I telling the truth? (Is the content accurate?)
2) Am I telling the whole truth? (Is any content missing?)
3) Am I telling nothing but the truth? (Did I say something unnecessary?)
And as soon as I run the company, everything will work perfectly... ;)
But I'm sure other Tech Writers feel much the same way.
David (The Man) Blyth (dsb -at- thomsoft -dot- com)
Technical Writer
Thomson Software Products
My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer (but they should be).
