Re: What to do?

["Anameier, Christine A - Eagan, MN" <christine -dot- a -dot- anameier -at- usps -dot- gov>]

Geoff wrote:
> If their English is really bad, it makes little sense for them to
waste
> lots of time fixing their own grammar etc. They're hired to be
> engineers, not writers, and even some native English engineers
> never master the art of writing clearly. 

This is a very good point. I always cringe when someone suggests
teaching an in-house writing class for engineers/developers. Are they
going to teach you engineering next? We're the writers; they're not.
They need to be able to communicate the information *to you* (whether in
person, on the phone, in email, whatever) but they don't need to form
spotless sentences for public consumption.

Personally, I tend to find it a lot easier to work with SMEs who don't
think they're good writers. They get a lot less bent out of shape when I
take what they gave me and rewrite every word of it. Make these folks
sit through writing classes, and they become more invested in their
writing; you still have to edit the heck out of it, but now they resent
you for messing with their new-and-improved prose (or else they wonder
why they had to sit through writing classes when you're still just going
to rewrite everything). 

> . . . it may be far more efficient for you to do all the writing based
on
> facts gathered during interviews with the engineers. . . . 
> If your editing burden is high, adopt a different approach than you
> might be less familiar with: Use their writing as source material
("just
> the facts"), and rewrite it from scratch rather than trying to edit
the
> text into submission. For really heavy editing, this is generally far
> more efficient (a better use of everyone's time) than more traditional
> forms of editing.

I think either of these approaches would be vastly superior to trying to
edit what they give you. The end result would probably be more coherent;
and you wouldn't be constrained by the discomfort of covering somebody's
prose in red ink (can you tell I've been dealing with a similar issue
lately?).

Christine

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