RE: Minimalism since 2000

["Janoff, Steve" <Steve -dot- Janoff2 -at- Teradata -dot- com>]

I would suggest that your statement is as anecdotal as mine that
minimalism is underused.

We should probably meet in the middle.  I'll consider what you say, but
I prefer to let the research bear out the truth.

I welcome additional comment from those who are familiar with research
on the topic from this decade.  As a side note, I have found a handful
of articles from this time period as an outcome of Robert's useful
pointer to Google Scholar.  I look forward to reading them.  I'm
guessing that perhaps the reason they are not more well-known is that
there is no unifying book that brings them all together, as there was in
1998 with John Carroll's second book, which collected the most prominent
articles from that decade.

The debate continues...

Best wishes,

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Laura Lemay [mailto:lemay -at- lauralemay -dot- com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 12:21 PM
To: Janoff, Steve
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Minimalism since 2000


On Aug 11, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Janoff, Steve wrote:
> Oh, and I got the response from Laura Lemay.  I dispute the notion 
> that these are old ideas that are well entrenched in the tech writing 
> community.  I've been in the field for 25 years, and I work with a 
> number of people who have just as many years in as I do, and I'm 
> amazed at how few of my colleagues know of minimalism or use its 
> principles.  And if indeed it's so entrenched, then why is the one 
> workshop on it so very popular these days?

I still run into plenty of 25-year-senior tech writers who don't know  
how to write procedures.  :|   So OK, I'll modify my statement, and  
argue that minimalism is a well-entrenched practice amongst tech writers
who are paying attention.  :)

Laura

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