Re: Industry jargon OK in marketing docs?

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

Julie said she used to work for this company, so I expect she already 
knows the answers to these questions and is just torn between following 
the reviewer's request for jargon and standing fast on her normal 
non-jargon practice.

One of the nicer aspects of contracting is usually that you usually find 
yourself reporting to only one person (the person who is responsible for 
your contract) and can direct policy issues to that person, as opposed 
to being a direct hire and being in the middle of a potential in-house 
foodfight.  In this situation I would simplify my life and just drop it 
in that person's lap to resolve instead of girding up for a fight.  If 
the company thinks my opinion on matters of policy is so authoritative, 
why am I not still an employee there?

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kathleen MacDowell" <kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com>
> This is an interesting question. I'm not a marketing specialist, but I 
> think
> I'd approach the issue by talking to the client. Questions might be:
>
> Is the material directed at a highly specific audience where the 
> terminology
> would be the most or best recognized term? Much as I'd tend to agree 
> with
> your initial reaction, what seems like jargon to me is often found in
> materials aimed at specialized audiences, such as software engineers, 
> versus
> what would be found for basic "user" materials.
>
> More generally, do they "feel" that the terminology is necessary, and 
> why.
>
> Who's returning the materials to you? Is it someone who should be 
> making the
> final judgment, or perhaps someone who just happened to notice your 
> change
> and isn't in the decision loop?

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

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help  
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! 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. 

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat