Computer Magazines (was: Gender, sex, and biology)

[Jim Grey <jwg -at- ACD4 -dot- ACD -dot- COM>]

Karen Kay asserts:
>A lot of computer stuff directed towards women is patronizing, and
>a lot of mainstream stuff is too techy (and aften badly written).
>(I'm talking in terms of magazines here, not documentation.)

I was reading the latest issue of one of the jillion mainline PC
mags the other day; picked it up during an idle moment in my temporary
Help Desk exile.  Reading it made me wonder whether there's any money
to be made writing articles for these mags.  I consider myself to be,
among writers, fair to average.  I know I could do a better job than
some of the writers I saw in this issue of this mag.  One article in
particular was extremely poorly written -- you know the kind, you try
to follow the author's thinking, but every convoluted, hard-to-read
sentence is an island unto itself, having little to do with the
sentences on either side.

In counterpoint, one of the Macintosh rags I used to take was at
least decently written.

But I think of the other (way too many) magazines I take, and the
writing in them is generally *much* better than in any computer mag
I've read.  Many of them, like _Rolling_Stone_ and _Car_and_Driver_,
are similar to computer mags in that they're written for a group of
people who share a common interest.  But RS and CD hire enthusiasts
who write as well.  I bet the computer mags hire computer gurus first,
and (much like the software biz), look at that as the supreme
qualification.

Peace,
jim grey
--
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