RE: instructions for a pb&j sandwhich - a little OT

[kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com]

Sean B. wrote;

> The core of my disagreement is this: Sean H.'s tale is amusing, not
> really informative. Is writing instructions for PB&J sandwiches, or any
> other kind of sandwich for that matter, really and truly a *difficult*
> task, for a novice writer or for those who *know* how to write
> instructions. Do instructions for making a sandwich really need to be
> preceded by a list of assumptions made by the writer?


Given the absurdity of the task, I'd say "probably." The person testing
you *knows* how to make the sandwich; it's a task you're BOTH familiar
with. And it makes it easy for the person to grade your efforts. The
object of the test is to make sure you cover all the possibilities,
present the information in a logical order, and don't skip any steps.

One of the steps is opening the jar. If you don't include that, in my
opinion you fail this particular test.

You're a pro, so the skills required are probably intuitive by now. So
such tests no doubt seem silly to you.

But I've worked with "experienced" writers who were terrible at estimating
the knowledge and skills of their audience. And I've read a lot of awful
documentation. I recently bought a watch from a major manufacturer who
provided me a sheet of instructions something like this.

1. Setting the date: 
    First turn the watch on, then.....

2. Setting the time:

3. Turning the watch on:


I kid you not. There was no rhyme or reason to the order of the steps, and
many steps referred to other steps found later in the doc, which needed to
be done *before* the steps I was currently working on.

Bottom line: I think these seemingly silly tests are great for reminding
us to think hard about what is and is not obvious to the reader.



Keith Cronin
__________________________

My attention span keeps getting shorter and shorter. Sometimes I even






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