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Subject:RE: Assumptions, the audience and arithmetic? From:"Jane Carnall" <jane -dot- carnall -at- digitalbridges -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 17 Aug 2001 11:14:22 +0100
John Fleming wrote:
-----Original Message-----
>The variant has more to do with the mathematical background of us as
>tech writers. If my perception of the typical tech writer is correct,
>there aren't many of us I can't walk circles around when it comes to
>math. <snip>
>Hence, my SME may be assuming I have a similar level of math
>competency to other writers she has worked with in the past. That is,
>she is attempting to explain something to me based on prior experience
>that isn't relevant in this situation.
I took a degree in Computing, and most of my co-students were planning to
become programmers (so was I, when I started). I noted, however, that out of
70-odd people, I was one of the few who could do basic arithmetical problems
in my head or on a scrap of paper, and didn't instinctively reach for my
calculator.
But I took the Arithmetic O-grade in 1983, the last year that the Scottish
Exam Board required one section of the exam to be taken without a
calculator: all problems had to be reckoned up on paper or in your head. (I
passed, too. <g>) Most of the 70-odd people in my year had either never
taken that exam or had taken it in a later year, when the "mental
arithmetic" section was no longer required. Anyone else remember that Asimov
story where arithmetics had been wholly forgotten until some genius clerk
rediscovered it?
Knowing how to add a positive number to a negative number is something like
knowing how to spell: it doesn't come instinctively, but once you learn it,
you have it for life.
Jane Carnall
Technical Writer and Compendium
of Arcane and Useless Information
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