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RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!
Subject:RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ! From:"Van Boening, Tammy" <Tammy -dot- VanBoening -at- chartercom -dot- com> To:"Ron Hearn" <rhearn -at- central1 -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:13:03 -0500
I once was frantically asked by the development team that I wrote for to
work all weekend and document a very critical section of the SW that had
been forgotten about by the team and which the customer was demanding to
have ASAP. I met with the SME late Friday, walked through all of the
planned development, took home the specs/requirements, etc. and went
pounding away - and yep, it darn near took the entire weekend.
Unbeknownst to me, however, when the SME started actually developing
over the weekend, he decided that he needed to do a complete overhaul of
the functionality and did so - without informing me. I submitted the
document to the SME (hard copy) on his desk first thing Monday morning
so that he could get it technically edited in time for me to get the
document to the customer by COB that day. It came back to me in about 5
minutes with a big red line through every page and the comment "Way
wrong" - uh, needless to say, the SME and I immediately had a rather
intense "come to Jesus talk" and I NEVER, EVER agreed to kill myself
over the weekend for that team again UNLESS I was promised in writing
and blood that nothing major would change as I was writing - otherwise,
I was waiting until the project was complete and then and only then was
I writing and tough cow cookies if the customer did not get the document
at the same time as the functionality - a screw up/late project on the
developer's part did NOT mean that for me - needless to say, this
developer learned very quickly that I meant what I said and he learned
to keep me in the loop at all times! LOL!
TVB
Tammy Van Boening
Curriculum Developer
Charter University
Charter Communications, Inc.
tammy -dot- vanboening -at- chartercom -dot- com
-----Original Message-----
From:
techwr-l-bounces+tammy -dot- vanboening=chartercom -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+tammy -dot- vanboening=chartercom -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot-
com] On Behalf Of Ron Hearn
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 2:36 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ...
GEEZ!
I have had such comments from SMEs such as "This is wrong!" (without
saying what is right) and the ever-helpful "WTF!".
Ron
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+rhearn=cucbc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+rhearn=cucbc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Janice Gelb
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:32 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ...
GEEZ!
Doug Cuff wrote:
>> The reason it got me upset was that, by just rewriting the passage
>> himself, as opposed to telling me what needed to be corrected, he
seemed
>> to be saying, "You're making such a mess of this that I don't think
>> you're capable of understanding what the problem is, so I'm just
going
>> to have to do it for you."
>
> I still get the impression it says, "I am able to express my own
thoughts in my own writing but am
> unable to edit someone else's writing."
>
> People with skills sometimes forget that not everyone possesses them,
not even to a small degree.
> It took me awhile to realize that not everyone can do what I do--I
guess partly because I endured
> so many years of people assuming that they could.
>
I don't think that the SME's task was to edit
the author's writing. The task was to note and
possibly correct the technical content of the
information. Saying "This is confusing/doesn't
include this necessary information/is technically
incorrect" does not require editing or writing
skills.
While I probably would rather get a rewrite than
a useless question mark at the side of the page,
as I've seen in the past, I still think that it's
not unreasonable for the writer to want to tactfully
let the SME know that for future reviews, the most
efficient solution is for the SME to indicate what's
wrong rather than rewriting it. The SME probably
thinks that providing new text is helpful and perhaps
would be grateful to learn that all that is expected
is an indication of what needs to be changed to make
the text technically accurate.
-- Janice
***********************************************************
Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com | this message is the return address
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