RE: This too is technical communication

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Mike Starr wrote:
 
> My usual approach is to go to an SME and ask one or two 
> pointed questions about specific details of the product. 
> However, there are times when I need to learn things from the 
> ground up, like when I'm learning a totally new technology. <snip>

Absolutely. But in that case, you're not _feigning_ ignorance, and your
ignorance isn't some sort of _advantage_ (as some others have suggested)
-- it's an _obstacle_ to be _removed_ as quickly as possible.
 
> But at the same time, I learned a long time ago that we 
> technical writers can't bluff our way through it or pretend 
> we understand complex products when we really don't. If we 
> don't understand it almost well enough to join the 
> development team, we'll have a hard time explaining it to the 
> customer.

Couldn't agree more! You simply can't write clearly about something you
don't understand. That always leads to ambiguities, confusing
statements, and weasel-words. 

Lack of knowledge is never an asset, so neither being dumb nor playing
dumb is a good idea. If you don't already have the necessary foundation
knowledge in an area you need to write about, by all means acquire it.
But if you _do_ have that foundation knowledge, use it to ask smarter
questions! (If you're a competent tech writer, you'll figure out how
much of the foundation knowledge to include for your audience without
having to role-play a forklift driver.) 

Stuart Burnfield wrote: 

> I don't understand where playing dumb comes into it. I know 
> some things about the product and the users, I don't know 
> others. I ask questions to find out the things that I need to 
> know but don't.
<snip>
>
> The SME has a lot of information. Some of it I already know, 
> some I need to know, some I don't need directly but may be 
> useful as background. I need to use my TW skills to pass the 
> useful info on to the readers in a clear and accessible 
> format. No-one in this transaction is an idiot or a forklift 
> driver--not the SME, not me, not the users.

Exactly. Most of the time, we're busy here. We don't play "let's
pretend" I'm ignorant. If I'm ignorant of something, I don't celebrate
it or defend it as an asset. It's a liability that needs to be
corrected. 

I do my best to correct my ignorance on my own, so that it imposes the
least burden possible on others. Anything else would be inconsiderate. 

"It's my opinion and it's very true." :-)

Richard


------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------






 
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