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Subject:Re: Resources for New Writer / Department From:John Posada <jposada01 -at- YAHOO -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 15 Apr 1999 15:18:17 -0700
Sue...there are many, many books and tools. The
problem is, most of them won't apply to the
environment that you will find yourself in, whatever
environment that may be.
Are you doing paper documentation? Online? Help files?
Webs? Proposals? User Docs? Marcom? Are you writing
about hardware? Software? Are you heading toward
Project Management or hand-to-hand combat with
individual words and paragraphs? There are maybe a
hundred more catagories, these are just off the top of
my head.
Suggestion. Don't cram. If you are learning a piece of
software, do you learn every nook and cranny before
word-1 is written or do you learn about a feature,
write about it, learn another feature, write about
that, etc.?
Next time you are given a responsibility, ask us what
resources are available for that skill. Learn what you
need to learn, not everything that can be learned.
It may be cool to have a huge library over your right
shoulder, but I'd guess that those of us that have
gone that route haven't cracked some of them and when
I...oops, I mean WE travel from gig to gig, we cart
around three dark green "extra large, 31 gallon
Tote-tubs with wheels".
As far as title? How about: "way-cool writer-dude"
--- Sue Clark <sue_clark -at- ALLEGIS -dot- COM> wrote:
> Hi -
>
> I'm fairly new to the list, and even newer to
> officially being a Tech
> Writer for a start-up. I'm the only writer and come
> from a product
> development background. I'm trying to find resources
> that will aid the
> entire documentation process.
>
> To this end, I'm looking for any suggestions of
> books/other tools that are
> valuable when establishing a department. I know
> there's a list of books, as
> well as other resource links, on the TECHWR-L
> website. but I don't think I
> can justify buying every title.
>
> As a bonus question, I'm looking for a good title
> for the business card.
>
> Thanks much,
>
> Sue
===
John Posada
Western Union International
(w) jposada -at- westernunion -dot- com
(p) john -at- tdandw -dot- com
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