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Subject:Re: Two kinds of people theory From:kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 8 Jul 2003 07:07:59 -0600
David (Bear) writes about:
> ... one of my pet theories.
> There are two kinds of people in the world...
>
> For the first kind (technical writers are in this group),
> natural language is a powerful and precise model of reality.
> For the second kind, natural language is simply the noise
> one makes while communicating information in a face-to-face
> exchange. The actual communication happens subliminally and
> is supported by physical gestures.
>
> For people of the second kind, there is no more information
> in technical writing than in the sound of a waterfall.
I disagree - I don't think that communication only falls into two such
discreet categories (although the two you identify definitely exist). From
years of both teaching and technical writing, I've found that people
exchange and process information in a wide variety of ways. Our challenge
is to convey information in a way that is most helpful to as many of them
as possible. And it's a major challenge!
However, I do subscribe to the "two kinds of people" philosophy, but with
a different focus. The two kinds of people that I keep clearly identifying
are:
? those who can write
? those who can't
>From what I've seen, no amount of effort enables the latter to join the
former. I do NOT say this from an elitist standpoint - I'm just reporting
what I've seen and experienced. YMMV.
Keith Cronin
You'd think that people would have had enough of silly sig lines. But I
look around me and I see it isn't so... oh no.
- Paul McCartney (sort of)
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