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RE: Teaching a practical business writing class and looking for professional rubrics
Subject:RE: Teaching a practical business writing class and looking for professional rubrics From:"Bruce Megan (ST-CO/ENG2.2)" <Megan -dot- Bruce -at- us -dot- bosch -dot- com> To:"Robert Lauriston" <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>, "techwr-l List" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:57:02 -0500
I agree...and want to elaborate...
I think young technical writers want to do such a good job from the get
go that they bite off more than they can chew (so to speak). This is to
say, they give themselves shorter deadlines than actually needed...and
then, in the 11th hour are scrambling to complete everything they
promised.
Over the last 17 years of technical writing, I have built into my
ambitious timeline, what I like to call a "week of wiggle". This allows
me to either turn in something way early or have it right on time. I
have never missed a deadline in all my years of writing....which I can't
say for my engineers.
:-).
I guess what I try to teach the new tech writers that I train into our
group, is that when approached as to the timeline, always give yourself
a little wiggle room, whether its 1 week or 3 days... We are not
psychics, able to see every little problem that will arise in our
development timeline.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+megan -dot- bruce=us -dot- bosch -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+megan -dot- bruce=us -dot- bosch -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Robert Lauriston
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 3:43 PM
To: techwr-l List
Subject: Re: Teaching a practical business writing class and looking for
professional rubrics
I think the most common mistake I see less experienced technical
writers make is getting bogged down in accomplishing a task in the
particular way they started doing it rather than recognizing that it's
taking too long and switching to a more efficient approach. For
example, it's sometimes much faster to fake screen shots by cutting
and pasting elements in Photoshop than to go through all the steps to
get the software to show what you want on screen.
Another common problem is belaboring the obvious. Unless you're
writing a "Windows for Dummies" book, you don't need a screen shot
showing how to select Open from the File menu, or how to click OK to
complete a dialog box.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Rob Hudson<caveatrob -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> I'm putting together a business writing course for undergraduates and
> wanted to survey the professional community about rubrics, or criteria
> lists, for various business and technical writing assignments. I
> figure that since you are all professionally experienced, you might
> have good insight into what you'd like to see from new
> technical/business writers.
>
> To ask it another way, what are the most common mistakes or problems
> you see from new writers in the workplace? I can back those ideas into
> criteria for assignments.
>
> I want to stay in touch with the professional world as I move forward
> in this class.
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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/
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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/
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