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> Nobody is advocating not understanding the topic. The assumption among
> professionals is that the technical writer understands the topic.
I do not think it is an assumption among professionals, and that is the
problem. Bonnie, you an I agree here. I think all professional writers should
have mastery over BOTH content issues and communication issues. My point is
that content issues should usually outweigh issues of standards, procedure, and
planning.
>> Plans and conventions are 100% meaningless, irrelevant, and wasted
>> if they are applied to inaccurate information.
>
> No s**t, Sherlock. Nobody advocates applying good professional guidelines
> to inaccurate information.
We agree Bonnie. No need to get snippy.
>> Good docs do convey a message. But they also convey a tone of "I have
command
>> over this topic."
>
> Only to the pseudowriter, who as I pointed out before, can think only of
> himself. You prove my point.
I am going to guess what you mean is that bad writers write to impress rather
than to express as Michael West said.
And I agree with that. Bad writers put too much of their own opinions into
their technical documents. (This is called editorializing among us former
journalists.) My personal gripe is technical docs that bash Microsoft. So what
if Microsoft is huge an evil. It isn't appropriate to editorialize in a
technical doc.
However, bad writers also rarely have intellectual command over the topic.
This is usually what leads to editorializing. Hence, their documents show a
distinct lack of comprehension of the intricacies and dependencies in the
subject matter. These bad writers never look beyond the text to ask questions
like "why does this work this way?"
Having intellectual command over a topic is not the same as being
self-absorbed. Furthermore, a little self-confidence in one's abilities does
not constitute "only thinking of oneself."
Andrew Plato
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