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Subject:RE: What Are Writing Skills? From:"Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:26:05 -0500
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bounce-techwr-l-137490 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:bounce-techwr-l-137490 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
> Of Oja, W. Kelly
> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 1:57 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: RE: What Are Writing Skills?
>
>
> It might be that I am currently on a antibiotic cocktail,
> mebbe because
> I have been to Missouri a time or two. I just do not know what
Yourdon
> is saying in this quote provided to us by Mr. Markos:
>
> "In terms of documenting systems, of course English Departments
don't
> understand how to structure documentation! As Ed Yourdon (Data
Flow
> Diagram guru) teaches: Systems are multidimensional; English
(text) is
> one dimensional; it is not possible to effectively document a
> multidemensional system using single dimensionsional text."
>
>From what I can determine from a little online research, Yourdon is
not talking to us at all; he's talking to systems analysts,
software developers, and the like. He's a very important figure in
systems analysis and program design. But he's not pertinent to
technical communicators, in my opinion, unless they are working in
a part of the field in which systems analysis and program design
are in fact the subject to be documented.
When he says "documentation," he is not talking about end-user
software documentation. Nothing that I have seen so far has him
recommending DFDs for writers. His tools are for systems analysts,
designers, and so forth.
Here's an example -- I can see where it might help a technical
writer get a sense of how a system works, but it's primarily for
designers and programmers, in my opinion:
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