Re: Training a new writer
<snip>
I have worked with people who actually are technical
writers, but I have never taken someone who isn't and
taught them from scratch. Any ideas on how to do
this?
You've done a lot to teach her the tools but she'll need to know how to get all her knowledge of the program and the tools onto paper in a way that the user finds it useful.
Therefore, I'd start by first telling her the formula you use for your manuals. These, I believe are different for each company. We've got a Getting started section at the beginning, who tells the user how to install the program, how to open it (invoke it?) and then the most commonly used tasks in detail (tutorials). The next section can then either be advanced tutorials, if applicable, or right onto the reference section, where each menu, command and dialog is listed and explained...
Teach her how to write any of these, and how to sort the information. Coming from a testing background, she'll probably have little problem with gathering the information, but more difficulties in putting the info on paper, so a few hints on the structure of each type of topic might be helpful. For example, tell that the location of the menu should be mentioned, also the name of the command where a dialog is accessed from etc.
Then just throw her in. If you are unsure about letting her try it out on a "real" manual, ask her to document NotePad or something like that, and get her to write some text for each of the different topic types. Finally, go through that with her and explain where she did it right, and where she's gone wrong and why. Now she can do the whole thing on a real project.
Hope this helps.
Sybille
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