TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
>If I might be permitted to be a little hard-nosed, the answer for the
school
>uniforms issue works for this one as well: if a person wants to be
>creative, then they should do it on their own time. They're being paid to
>follow departmental standards and, more importantly, in this non-fiction
>industry we call tech writing, individual creativity is low on the totem
>pole. And as someone else said, that's one reason why companies use
>editors: to help ensure documentation has one uniform voice and appearance.
Last time I worked in a team of technical writers (all working on the same
big Help project) we had an *extremely* thorough (some might even say,
picky) style guide. Each time a repeating phrase came up, the "best
practice" phrase was put in the style guide, and thereafter, you used that
phrase from the style guide: you didn't get to make individual "creative"
decisions.
What saved us (well, me: I was Writer Wresponsible for that project) from
accusations of being power-trippy was this: *I* didn't decide on the style
guide. (I did get to do 'casting vote' if two factions couldn't make up
their minds.) A new phrase got passed to the group by e-mail. It was agreed
to, sometimes discussed and rewritten, and occasionally argued over in
person. The writer who spotted the need for a new phrase for the style guide
was the one responsible for coming up with a standard phrase - which
everyone else then got to comment on. If you wanted to suggest a change to
the style guide, anyone working on the project could do so: just send round
an e-mail explaining the change and the reason (and why it mattered enough
that we should do a search and replace through X number of RTF files...)
It has been noticed that schoolchildren are much less reluctant to wear
school uniforms if *they* get to decide on what the school uniform is.
Jane Carnall
Technical Writer, Digital Bridges, Scotland
Unless stated otherwise, these opinions are mine, and mine alone.
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
Sponsored by Cub Lea, specialist in low-cost outsourced development
and documentation. Overload and time-sensitive jobs at exceptional
rates. Unique free gifts for all visitors to http://www.cublea.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
