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Perhaps you could clarify the sentence beginning, "aggressively
non-technical ..."?
In my experience, vagueness is more likely to originate with engineers or
software developers who are busy doing their primary job, which is not
typically writing instructions or user assistance.
As a non-technical technical writer who does an excellent job documenting
software and hardware, I also take exception to the whole tenor of your
comment. A so-called technical writer who would insert an ambiguous phrase
is simply not in tune with the requirements of the job. It doesn't matter if
they're "technical" or "non-technical".
>
> One of my pet peeves is procedures that verbosely describe exactly how to
> complete a form or dialog -- including information about exactly how many
> characters and what kind each text field can contain, etc. -- and then when
> you get to the critical part, say something like "enter the appropriate
> parameters" or "choose the appropriate options."
>
> BTW, that kind of nonsense frequently comes from aggressively non-technical
> technical writers who insist that their ignorance of the subject matter is
> some kind of advantage.
>
> Richard
>
>
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> ------
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> ------
>
>
>
--
Kathleen MacDowell
www.writefortheuser.com
kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com
kathleen -dot- eamd -at- gmail -dot- com
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