Re: FW: Plans for rebuilding New Orleans

Subject: Re: FW: Plans for rebuilding New Orleans
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 14:03:15 -0400


Johnson, Tom wrote:


As technical writers, we should realize people don't always heed good advice. How do we convince our audience that dangers are real and warnings aren't just to cover our own butts and sometimes we really do look out for the reader's best interest?

Actually, numerous US government agencies over the years have sponsored excellent publications that deliver realistic warnings in appropriate, persuasive ways. Depending on the agency and the decade, these publications have been variously produced: in-house by civil servants; by freelances, by public relations contractors (using in-house or freelance talent); and by other types of primary contractors.

Don't confuse internal government procedural documents, legislative and regulatory documents, policy documents, instructions for filling out a grant application, etc., with consumer education documents. A warning that is nothing more than legal boilerplate in an equipment repair manual is entirely different from the sorts of instructions, advice, and warnings that the government has been effective at propagating for a long time--when they want to.

To the extent that new consumer-facing documents are going to be needed by FEMA, Homeland Security, etc., and to the extent that the people working in those agencies need effective training and instructional documents so that they learn how to spread the word to the target audience, there will be many opportunities for tech writers.

As to your point that people don't always listen, well, yes, that's true. Sometimes they hear the message, but higher priorities (in their minds) may prevent their heeding it. Take, as an example, the powerful television and radio commercials, produced by the Border Patrol and broadcast throughout Mexico and Central America, warning graphically of the dangers of crossing the border illegally. These were physical health and safety warnings about dying in the desert, not legal warnings about being caught and returned. They are used seasonally. People crossing the border illegally have seen or heard them and weighed their options, then chosen to make the crossing anyway. That's a measure of their desperation, not a measure of how effectively the message was produced. You can't blame the writing or production quality of the ads for the deaths that do occur; you can only hope they prevented even more deaths.

I'm not interested in debating border policy. I'm just using that as an example. Other examples include the instructional booklets produced in the 1930s (and presumably updated since then) on building and stocking a storm cellar if you live in Tornado Alley; the USDA booklet on safe canning techniques (the body of the Ball Blue Book is the USDA pamphlet); ...and hundreds of others, I'm sure.


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FW: Plans for rebuilding New Orleans: From: Johnson, Tom

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