TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
RE: Refining My "Cutting Edge" Technical Writing Skills Post
Subject:RE: Refining My "Cutting Edge" Technical Writing Skills Post From:John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 17 Sep 2003 12:05:04 -0400
>Complexity is a permanent property, and
>it does not disappear because you
>understand the subject.
To my mother, AOL is complex...her VCR is complex..the CD player with all
the buttons is complex. It's not complex for me. I walked her through
recording on her VCR over the phone and I'd never seen hers before.
Complexity is VERY MUCH subjective.
>If the subject is complex, your documentation
>should be created with great care.
ALL of my documentation is created with great care. I simple three-step
process will go wrong if at step 2 you should "Pres" and instead, you write
"Pull".
> which makes it proportionally smaller
> against the learning time than a subject that is relatively simple, but I
> know very little about it, which means I've spent more tome on the
document
> against the time I spent on the learning.
OK, let's try that again..
if the subject is simple, I may not take the time to learn it thoroughly...I
may take an hour to familiarize myself with it. Because of that, it takes me
three hours to write the instructions. A total of four hours, with which 3/4
of the time was writing.
OTOH, I may have a complex subject, for which I take 3 weeks to learn it and
one week to write. That's 1/4 writing. Am I taking less time,
proportionally? yes. it is because of the complexity of the subject? no.
John Posada
Information Hunter-Gatherer
Special Projects; Information Technology
Barnes&Noble.com
NY: 212-414-6656
****************************************************************************
**********************************
This electronic mail message contains information that (a) is or may be
CONFIDENTIAL,
PROPRIETARY IN NATURE, OR OTHERWISE PROTECTED BY LAW FROM DISCLOSURE,
and (b) is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) named herein. If
you are not an
intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and take the steps
necessary to
delete the message completely from your computer system.
Not Intended as a Substitute for a Writing: Notwithstanding the Uniform
Electronic Transaction
Act or any other law of similar effect, absent an express statement to the
contrary,
this e-mail message, its contents, and any attachments hereto are not
intended to represent
an offer or acceptance to enter into a contract and are not otherwise
intended to bind
this sender, barnesandnoble.com llc, barnesandnoble.com inc. or any other
person or entity.
NEED TO PUBLISH YOUR FRAMEMAKER CONTENT ONLINE?
?Mustang? (code name) is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to Web, intranets, and online Help.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! See a live demo that
will take your breath away: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l3
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
