RE: terminology question (and a bit of a rant)

[lisa -dot- wadley -at- zymark -dot- com]

Hi, Rosemary

This is officially my first post to techwr-l! (Who, me?? I'm not
nervous!!) Although I'm not quite sure what type of process doc the other
person is writing, and my suggestion won't help this time, maybe it will
help next time. I'm assuming the process doc has very similar content to
the Help file.

Using Robohelp, you can generate a printed doc from your help file. I
know, it's not great, but hear me out. OK, take that doc (mine took about
3 minutes to generate for a 400 topic help file), go through and delete
all the stuff that the process-writer doesn't need. A little
time-consuming, but not too bad. Does he/she just need the procedures? The
procedures with step-by-step instructions? Just the window descriptions?
Whatever they need, give them the stripped down version of the document to
use to get them started.

If they will use it, one of the biggest advantages is that by the time
they've read through it, they will probably have gotten used to the
terminology you used, and hopefully the process document and the help will
be more likely to call things by the same name.

And you can pitch it as being a team player and helping out the
policy-writer. It should help them out by not having that blank page
staring at them. Plus any disagreements about terminology should be
obvious to the policy-writer, and can be discussed and agreed upon.

Just my thoughts, hope it helps,
Lisa Wadley
Zymark Corporation


> <snip>
> My boss _kind of_ made that clear to the person writing the process doc. But
> not clear enough, obviously. Now I'm supposed to integrate their work and
> mine. 
> 
> <more snips>
> 
> The points I want to make are:
> 
> It's not efficient for me to write something, then somebody else to write
> the same material in a completely different way, then me to
> edit/review/integrate their work or rewrite mine. 
> 
> I've been using these guidelines (previously in my head, now on paper) to
> ensure consistency across the help for all our apps. This is justification
> for some of the changes I want to make. Remember, ensuring consistency is
> one of my duties. Yes, they're my preferences, but I'm open to changing them
> too. I just want to be consistent in whatever we choose.
> 
> 
> I think this is the overall gist of the advice you guys gave, as well. You
> helped me clarify a few things in my mind, see where I need to be most
> careful of being misunderstood.  I have a meeting with my immediate
> supervisor this afternoon (not the boss I referred to earlier). I'll let you
> know how it goes.
> 
> Thanks so much!!!
> 
> Rosemary


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