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Subject:RE: What is More Important? From:"Gordon McLean" <Gordon -dot- McLean -at- GrahamTechnology -dot- com> To:"'Techwr-l'" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 17 May 2007 16:37:57 +0100
Hardly, unless you are suggesting that our profession is essential to the
continued survival of mankind... Mind you, most people are quick enough to
blame the documentation when things go wrong, we HAVE written up the birds
and bees procedures, right??
G
(long day, too much caffeine, attempt at humour, failed)
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+gordon -dot- mclean=grahamtechnology -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+gordon -dot- mclean=grahamtechnology -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of Pinkham, Jim
Sent: 17 May 2007 16:21
To: Techwr-l
Subject: RE: What is More Important?
I was concise. I favored both. Don't be too surprised we "did not JUST pick
one." In our trade, it's a bit like asking, "If forced to pick an element
for your environment, which would you prefer, air or water?"
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of richard -dot- melanson -at- us -dot- tel -dot- com
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 9:37 AM
To: Janice -dot- Gelb -at- Sun -dot- COM; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: What is More Important?
Thank you for the segue Janice :-)
I attempted to address a few thoughts I had by asking the group this
question. First I just wanted to get everyone's opinion, simply a choice of
one or the other. I am amazed that almost everyone did not JUST pick one. I
have been a member of this list off and on for the 14 years I have been a
Technical Writer and we all know who the active posters are, who the lurkers
are, etc. I was also looking for a specific response from two or three
members of the list. I initially was not sure if the response would be on
the list or off, but I eventually did get the response I expected. There are
a couple other issues I wanted to address but I won't waste any further
bandwidth.
Please allow me to close by pointing something out. Did anyone notice the
people who responded and chose technical accuracy did so and were concise
with their explanation. But the people who chose writing well appeared, to
me, to have more passion, more energy, and much lengthier emails with their
explanations. Just my observation.
Thank you everyone, for taking the time to respond, I sincerely appreciate
the help and insight everyone has shared with me. Take care and be healthy,
now I have a deadline to meet, see you guys in a month or so :-) Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+richard -dot- melanson=us -dot- tel -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+richard -dot- melanson=us -dot- tel -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]
On Behalf Of Janice Gelb
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 1:23 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: What is More Important?
Lauren wrote:
>
> Janice Gelb wrote:
>>
>> The only purpose to this question that I can see would be for someone
>> looking for an excuse for inelegant writing due to deadline pressures
>> forced by late technical changes.
>
> I see two possibilities. One is of a writer that wants more time from
> a project manager to tidy up the document, but the PM says just make
> it "accurate." Another possibility is of a PM wants a deliverable to
> look well-written and the PM doesn't care about the accuracy of the
content.
> I've been in situations where PMs will say that content doesn't matter
> because people won't read the document anyway.
>
The third possibility, which hadn't occurred to me when I wrote my original
message, is to justify having engineers write documentation because if
accuracy is more important than writing skills then you can get rid of
writers altogether. Note that I am *not* saying that this is necessarily
what the original poster meant. However, because the answer to his question
was obviously going to be overwhelmingly either that you need both or that
technical accuracy was most important if you had to choose, I immediately
had the reaction that the person asking the question must want to be able to
say there was support for his opinion in some discussion related to the
preference of technical accuracy over writing skill.
-- Janice
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