The End Of Technical Writing?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Tony Markos reports: <<I was told by one of the mainstays on this 
listserv that the reason why there are so few End-User Task Analysis 
posts is because most of us TWs already have that issue licked...>>

<Offensive generalization alert>: The real problem is that surprisingly 
few people have ever heard of this task, those who have heard of it 
don't have the time to do it, and those who have the time to do it 
often do it poorly without knowing that this is the case. </alert>

A tad less nastily, I suspect that the people who most need to know of 
this and of how to do it right are least aware of this task, and thus, 
don't ask questions. Those who are doing it well don't need to ask. 
Spot the communication breakdown.

<<... and that the REAL issues we face are how to use the tools.>>

Rubbish. I'm in the camp that says the real problem is that not very 
many people write well, and that this is true to a surprising extent 
even within our profession--a conclusion I base upon the quality of 
most of the manuals in my possession. Tools are the things that help 
you write faster, but if you can't write, you're not a technical 
_writer_ no matter what you can make Frame and Webworks do. You are 
indeed what Tony called a "production specialist", but you're not a 
writer.

<<In other words, we mainly face production problems, not writing 
problems.>>

We certainly face production problems, but frankly, these pale into 
insignificance compared with the really important problem: having time 
to understand something well enough that we can write about it clearly.

--Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)


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