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>Inaccuracies are 100% the direct fault of the
>author(s) and editors. And 99.9% of the time
>its because those writers and editors do not
>understand the technology they are documenting.
>Too much of the work is done in a vacuum with
Close, but not realistic except in a world that is totally without influence
by outside factors of which you have no control.
An author should make every effort to strive for 100% accuracy. This effort
includes
- understand the technology from both a theoretical perspective and from an
applied perspective.
- understand how the technology is applied to the situation being documented
- reviewing the technology WITH others (not BY others) who have an even
better understanding of the technology.
Also, part of this responsibility is to accept that errors DO happen
(Andrew..you caught an error today. If you didn't catch one yesterday and
one the day before, you only caught 1 out of 3) and to understand, at every
point in the documentation, that if an occurrence of an error was to happen
at that point, is it of critical or insignificant consequences.
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
jposada -at- book -dot- com
212-414-6656
icq: 178047452
aim: jposada1
"When you only have two minutes to do
something that takes three, wait until you have three"
This article has a number of questionable assumptions. But the big one is:
"Because I am a technical writer, I understand that inaccuracies are not
necessarily the fault of the writer, or even the editor. "
Inaccuracies are 100% the direct fault of the author(s) and editors. And
99.9%
of the time its because those writers and editors do not understand the
technology they are documenting. Too much of the work is done in a vacuum
with
editors who won't "dirty their hands" with technology or writers who
consistently misunderstand how to use the very products they're documenting.
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