RE: Technical writing for finance: one for the Friday files

Subject: RE: Technical writing for finance: one for the Friday files
From: "Condo, Candis" <ccondo -at- c-cor -dot- com>
To: "Geoff Hart" <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>, "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, "Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 12:45:06 -0700

I find this discussion very interesting. You might want to consider an article I read last evening on the miniscule amount of published research results compared to the amount of field work in the HUGH field of archaeology. The author's point was that most archaeologist hate to write and love the field work. Therefore, much information is being lost because they do NOT publish. His point is they need to hire writers (he did not say technical writers but that's what he was talking about) to get this immense job done and out there for public or at least university consumption.

Sounds like a great break from hi-tech to me.

Candis L Condo

________________________________

From: techwr-l-bounces+ccondo=c-cor -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com on behalf of Geoff Hart
Sent: Sat 5/26/2007 6:06 AM
To: TECHWR-L; Ned Bedinger
Subject: Technical writing for finance: one for the Friday files



Ned Bedinger noted: <<Wow, nice save, Dan! It took me a second to
grasp the importance of defending our turf against these loosely-
focused insinuations that jargon and complexity are the key to tech
writing. There's destructive reductionism lurking out there, in all
of those alternative career paths where writing, even explanatory
instructional writing, is featured.>>

Hang on a second, guys. I never said anything of the sort. What I did
say is that there are a great many more professions than computer
documentation in which it's important to understand jargon and deal
with complexity, which is a very different thing. Biology and physics
and chemistry (among other sciences) represent one very large and
obvious group; economics (science fiction, really) is another; and
even the language of dance notation (as described by Edward Tufte in
one of his first two books) is another. The point here is that the
genre is _technical_: it has certain conventions you must understand
and requires certain knowledge and skills before you can work
successfully with the complexity in that genre.

Also note that jargon does not inevitably mean "words chosen so that
only the illuminati will understand or words chosen to make the
speaker sound more important than they really are". That's certainly
one form of jargon; the other kind involves language chosen because
it communicates efficiently among people working within a genre. We
speak here on techwr-l of WinHelp vs. WebHelp vs. HTMLHelp not
because we're trying to exclude anyone (which would be the case if we
were talking to non-techwhirlers) or sound smarter than we really
are, but rather because this jargon communicates effectively. Imagine
if we had to explain the details of what we mean by "help" every time
we talked about anything related!

<<In an age where everyone seem bent on making a blind stab at
defining tech writing as a department and a skillset, it seems to me
very patriotic to repel borders this way.>>

I assume you're being sarcastic, or perhaps just waving the flag
without really thinking it through? Any definition can be carried to
extremes, and that's exactly the wrong point to be making. The right
point to make is that technical communication really is a skillset,
not exclusively "writing in the computer industry". That's an
unnecessarily narrow worldview, and while it might be appropriate for
the specific community that is techwr-l, it's much like the goldfish
circling his tiny bowl and being amazed at how rich and diverse his
world is... particularly that cool little castle. <g>


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
--------------------------------------------------
Coming soon: _Effective onscreen editing_ (http://www.geoff-hart.com/
home/onscreen-book.htm)

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more.
http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

Now shipping: Help &amp; Manual 4 with RoboHelp(r) import! New editor,
full Unicode support. Create help files, web-based help and PDF in up
to 106 languages with Help &amp; Manual: http://www.helpandmanual.com

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Follow-Ups:

References:
RE: Technical writing for finance: one for the Friday files: From: Dan Goldstein
Re: Technical writing for finance: one for the Friday files: From: Ned Bedinger
Technical writing for finance: one for the Friday files: From: Geoff Hart

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