Re: Alone from the start (was: Documentation planning)

[John Cornellier <tw -at- cornellier -dot- com>]

Yeah. Back in 1992. For ages I didn't even know the job title "technical writer" existed, until 
someone went on holiday to New York and found an STC brochure in a public library or 
somewhere.

It was a stressful experience. Quite late in the project I scrapped all my work & started over 
because what I'd done was merely descriptive of the functionality (spec-based) rather than user-
oriented (procedure based). Still, I'm glad I myself tried different methods of documenting. than 
being given a template and a mentor.

In retrospect, most of the difficulties I encountered were not because of my ignorance and 
inexperience regarding tech writing, e.g. doc design, writing, planning. That stuff I was able to 
pick up by studying the many user manuals lying around the office and at home. Rather, the 
difficulties were due to bad project management. The management of the whole engineering 
project was poor, and the management of the tech writing part was non-existent. Had I had 
experience with other "properly run" projects, I would have been better equipped.

If I could do it again? Yup. The good outweighs the bad. As a junior TW in a large pubs group, 
I'd be worried about turning into a gopher, over-specializing in some of the secondary tasks: 
revising, formatting, indexing, proofreading, editing. (Not that I'm belittling the latter, I just mean 
they're secondary in the sense that they depend on the primary task of writing). As a junior in a 
large pubs group you might not get to do much writing and project planning.

But that's just my personal preference - 'cause that's what suits my temperament. Some people 
might be better suited to working in a large group, and in the long term that might serve them 
equally well as a start to tech writing.

John Cornellier

> Has anyone on this list been the lone writer on their
> *very first* job (i.e. working in-house) or project?



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