Re: If You Were Gonna Teach...

[Steven Brown <stevenabrown -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Ignore grammatical issues. Most readers can interpret
beyond bad grammar.

Instead, I'd focus the importance of documenting
things completely. Most of my frustration is working
with insufficient information. For example, tech
writers complain about trying to write good release
notes from bug reports that are incomplete. I'd
explain that it's better to be thorough in their
writing, never assuming that their readers know as
much as they do.

I'd provide several examples and discuss how they'd
improve the information. Dare I suggest it, but you
could even assign "pre-work." Ask them to write
procedures for making a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich and then try to actually make a sandwich in
class using their instructions.

Steven Brown
Senior Technical Writer


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