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On 12/29/00 9:34 AM, Keith Cronin (kcronin -at- DALEEN -dot- COM) wrote:
>The freshness of the "non-technical" person can provide him or her with an
>objectivity that more closely mirrors that of the TARGET of all our
>writing - the USER.
Sorry, I keep hearing this in our industry and it has never made any
sense to me. How can knowing less make you better at your job? If you
don't have a thorough technical knowledge of the product you're
documenting, how do you know whether you're leaving out important
information?
I also don't think it provides any "freshness" in the approach to your
writing. Every technical writer has to be able to put herself in the
appropriate frame of mind for the audience, whether that audience is a
junior-high-school-graduate-computer-newbie or a
super-power-user-digital-god. If you can't write for your audience,
you're not capable of doing the job, and being "non-technical" can't help
you with that problem.
Am I the only one who sees value in knowing more than you need to tell
your audience, or do others out there really think that knowing only the
information your audience needs is a bonus?
----->Mike
________________________________________________________________
stockman -at- jagunet -dot- com -- AOL and AOL Instant Messenger:MStockman
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