Re: Drafts -- some people not clear on the concept...

Subject: Re: Drafts -- some people not clear on the concept...
From: Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 20:50:36 -0700 (PDT)


"Steven Oppenheimer" wrote...

> All I want to say, in brief reply to the comments below, is that I have
> repeatedly found that many people just don't get the concept of a
> draft. It irritates the hell out of me, and unlike "Doc", the second
> poster below, I am not sympathetic to the fact that these anal-retentive
> citizens may have nothing better to do with their weekends than nit-pick
> rough drafts.

Let me see if I got this right....

You turn in a draft and then COMPLAIN when the person reading it has the gall to
actually EDIT your work. That's gratitude for ya.

Sounds like you are in love with your words. That's the kiss-o-death in technical
writing.

> There must be some personality type (or types) on the Myers-Briggs schema
> that simply cannot grasp, cannot appreciate that some things (documents,
> songs, rough cuts of films) come in rough, provisional form, and are simply
> preliminary expressions of initial stream-of-consciousness
> creativity. These same people also don't seem to grasp that flaws can be
> easily, quickly fixed with simple editing ("Ooh, aah, look it's a WORD
> PROCESSOR with CUT and PASTE and DELETE and INSERT!" "A what? What
> millenium are we living in?...."). These people, with these personality
> types, should be banned from all management positions. Or, at the very
> least, they should be barred by law from looking at anything until it's in
> at least its third draft.

You should be happy that people nit-pick your work. That means they're actually
reading it and trying to improve it. The best editors ARE nit pickers and a bit
anal-retentive.

Its real simple...if you turn in a draft and your boss yells at you that it is
too rough, then next time make sure you polish it up a little more BEFORE you
hand it to your boss. You're boss is telling you he/she wants cleaner drafts.
Just because you think a draft can contain messy parts doesn't mean your boss
agrees with you. And since your boss has to approve your work, it sounds to me
like you had better meet his/her expectations.

So, from this point forward, don't turn over any material until it is at the
level of cleanliness your boss wants.

That means, don't tell your boss "Oh yeah, it will be done today" when you really
need another day to edit it to bring it to your boss's expectations.

Andrew Plato

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