Re: being too picky?

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

Becca Price wrote:
> 
> when people ask me whether I'm an expert in a given
> subject, I usually say "no, but I'm an expert at
> asking questions."
> 
> I consider, as a technical writer, that one of my
> major strengths is that I know how to ask questions...
> and how to listen to the answers.
> 
> I think I'm a third type of writer than the two that
> Bruce proposes.. I may not be an expert in subject x
> by the time I'm finished writing about it, but you
> couldn't always tell that by reading what I've
> written.
> 
> What I *do* think I need to know is enough about the
> subject to be able to find the right structure for the
> information... how best to present it.  After that, to
> me, the rest is just filling in the details.  Whenever
> I have problems writing about something, I know it's
> because the proposed structure of the manual (or
> section, or paragraph) isn't right, doesn't accurately
> reflect the subject.

Not that I want to get hung up on categories (after all, I only
devised them just before I wrote), but it seems to me that you'd
fall into the second category. You've learned what you have to
learn, and the structure is a trick you have for determining what
else you need to learn.

Does that sound right?


-- 
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com | Tel: 604.421.7189

"And when I moved upon them down a byway,
Bathed and annointed, sweet with oil of rose,
They blanched, for they had left me on the highway
Covered with blood and with a broken nose."
- Roy Daniells, "Psalm 23"