Re: STC Letter to the Editor

[SteveFJong -at- aol -dot- com]

Andrew, if the definition of a writer is someone who understands the subject 
matter, what are you doing typing things in this thread? You demonstrate no 
understanding.

Thanks for closing the loop on three of the four points you raised, which you 
now retract. You seem to have forgotten one of them, though. You did not say 
the competition should be free, and I did not say it was. What you actually 
typed was this:

>> 4. Wipe out all the regional competitions and have one national one.
>>  Make it a real honor to win. 

I wrote back: "To win an international award, an entry must first win an 
Award of Distinction from a local competition. If [Andrew] thinks the 
competition is already too easy, why advocate making it easier?" I can't tell 
from what you typed whether you understand and agree with this. 

Anyway, we are left with your point that the competition does not assess 
technical accuracy. I did not say that technical accuracy was an unreasonable 
standard, I said the opposite: that it is the most important quality factor 
for a technical document. What I did say, which you ought to understand 
because you retyped it, is that assessing the technical accuracy of a 
document as part of the competition requires access to the product it 
documents, which STC does not have; and that such an assessment would, if 
done right, be too valuable a service to offer merely for the Competitions 
entry fee.

Do you have any suggestions how to assess the technical accuracy of a 
document without access to the product it documents? Does anyone?



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