Re: TECH. WRITING SURVEY - OPINIONS REQUESTED

Subject: Re: TECH. WRITING SURVEY - OPINIONS REQUESTED
From: Kent Dannehl <kdannehl -at- STARFISHSOFTWARE -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:43:33 -0700

This is clearly bogus....not worth responding too...

At 09:06 AM 7/28/97 -0700, jack w. bonney wrote:
>we are conducting research into the work undertaken by "technical
>writers", either as employees or under "freelance contractors".
>
>if you are involved in any way with documentation and manuals, both on
>paper or electronic, and as managers or readers as well -- then we
>would
>appreciate receiving your knowledgeable comments and opinions on any or
>all of the following observations:
>
>1. a study by xerox reported in 1986 that more than 80% of all manuals
>produced by the fortune 1000 companies were seldom opened more than
>twice;
>this represented an estimated 3 trillion pages costing $75 Billion.
>
>2. an analysis of more than 40 textbooks on how to prepare "manuals"
>shows that the fundamental process remains unchanged since before world
>war II; replacing a typewriter with a computer has done little to reduce
>the time and costs involved nor to improve the quality of the results.
>
>3. the wrong people are using the wrong tools in the wrong way to do
>this
>work; the vast majority of "technical writers" (including in-house
>employees who "did" the policy manual) were never trained nor hired for
>the work, and personally don't like doing it.
>
>4. most technical communications groups appear to be network forums for
>find project-related jobs or for "ad hoc" frequently asked questions
>about
> how to do the work -- very little is done about research into the
>work
>and the disciplines and techniques that are involved.
>
>5. most developers of engineered systems and products do not know how
>to
>interface with those who must prepare the documentation needed to
>support
>their work -- because of this, the real losers are those who must rely
>on the documentation.
>
>6. the key priority of using documentation has little to do with how
>"pretty" the manuals are; readers want 3 key features:
>
> a. functional organization,
> b. consistent presentation,
> c. accurate and complete content.
>
>7. wordprocessing and page composition packages are not "systems" i.e.
>they do not process data independently nor add value to it -- as
>singular work tools, they are extremely labour intensive and clumsy for
>the task.
>
>8. documentation and manuals are an expense -- in most cases, they do
>not
>generate revenue for the developer -- most technical writers have no
>expertise in costing and budgeting for this work, address only part of
>the
>entire process, and fail to report the total costs to management --
>management has no understanding of the true costs involved and fail to
>appreciate the value and importance of the results.
>
>- - - - - - -
>
>we will appreciate your contributions and comments; copies of our
>findings
>will be sent to all participants who request.
>
>thank you for your assistance.
>
>sincerely,
>
>jack w. bonney,
>
>vancouver canada
>
>ssi_can -at- istar -dot- ca
>
> TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
>to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
> to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
> Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
>browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
>
>

TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html


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