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Subject:Re: re poets as tech writers and programmers From:Lydia roth <lydiaroth -at- sbcglobal -dot- net> To:elizabeth j allen <eja -at- samurai -dot- com>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:02:19 -0700 (PDT)
This looks like a great book. Anyone know of a similar book but dealing with chemistry?
I'm still seething over a meeting that I had with a subject matter expert last Friday. I write user manuals for analytical instruments, and we were meeting to discuss the manual for a mass spectrometer. This was our first meeting in a series where we would meet every other week to discuss the manual with the purpose of "making it better."
During our first meeting, we only discussed the installation procedures. I was prepared for some serious procedure writing with a copy of the manual and a digital camera. I didn't have questions because I had already been over this chapter several times with SMEs from other departments. We finished the entire chapter in 20 minutes because he had had only about a half hour of spare time to read it over.
He did have a couple of things to tell me though: "Wow, it's amazing that you can write this stuff without a chemistry background," and "No one reads the manual anyway."
I think a chemistry background might be useful to me in this position, but that obviously doesn't guarantee the manual would be any better. (Previous writers have had science backgrounds and one SME told me that we "finally" had a good manual. I don't know that he was necessarily complimenting me though.)
Good technical writers, no matter what their background is, are those who are passionate about writing well, who care about their subject no matter what it is, who have a strong support from management, who work in an environment with clearly defined processes for document creation and review, and who have the drive to learn more about their subjects. Only 3 of these apply to me- the first two and last.
Lydia
elizabeth j allen <eja -at- samurai -dot- com> wrote:
This thread reminds me of one of my favorite books in high school,
"Physics for Poets" by Robert March.
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