Re: injecting a little whimsy into grey text

[Janice Gelb <Janice -dot- Gelb -at- Sun -dot- COM>]

Milan Davidovic wrote:
> Have you ever felt like the writer described in this post?
> 
> http://www.mikepope.com/blog/DisplayBlog.aspx?permalink=2041
> 

Humor in technical writing is a tricky subject.As
the article notes, without really knowing all the
members of your audience, you can't really tell what
jokes will work. The example here is really not
appropriate as it is both a US-centric and religiously
affiliated reference.

That said, I have seen small touches done well. However,
they must be done in such a way that they don't use
cultural referents that might be offensive or contribute
to a feeling of alienation, and should be unobtrusive. For
example, _The Whole Internet Catalog & User's Guide_ by
Ed Krol (published at the dawn of time in 1992) featured
in its examples employees and company names taken from the
cult film "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the
8th Dimension." (The sample email from johnb -at- yoyodyne -dot- com
with the subject "Do You Have the Overthruster?" still
cracks me up.) If you knew the source, the text in the
examples made you laugh. If you didn't know the source,
the names didn't mean anything but didn't get in your way.

-- Janice

***********************************************************
Janice Gelb          | The only connection Sun has with
janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com  | this message is the return address

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

ComponentOne Doc-To-Help gives you everything you need to author and 
publish quality Help, Web, and print content. Perfect for technical 
authors, developers, and policy writers. Download a FREE trial.
http://www.componentone.com/DocToHelp/

True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.