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Subject:RE: Best Documentation From:"Anthony Markatos" <tonymar -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:Kathi -dot- Knill -at- level8 -dot- com, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Tue, 08 Feb 2000 15:43:54 PST
Tony Markatos said:
SNIP: ~~ When was the last time that you participated in or witnessed a
tech comm project that fell apart because of poor writing skills?
Kathi Jan Knill responded:
As a matter of coincidence, I was recently told that a company's doc was so
bad that they got complaints about it when the software release occurred.
There was no formatting, no thought to page layout, style, etc. The writing
itself was inconsistent and almost totally passive in tone. While wordy, the
extra words served little purpose other than to fill up space.
Tony Markatos responds:
Kathi, these are all what Hackos calls documentation "manufacturing" issues.
As such, they are all relatively easy to correct. It is failures in
planning, analysis, and overall organization that cause the big
(next-to-impossible to correct) problems.
Tony Markatos
(tonymar -at- hotmail -dot- com)
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