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Subject:Re: STC Letter to the Editor From:Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:46:34 -0800 (PST)
--- David Neeley <dbneeley -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
I have become the Andrew Plato auto-responder.
> But, pray tell me--are *your* documents (when you
> *are* in fact creating *documents* and not spending
> your time either working on security matters or
> posting voluminously to TECHWR-L)...also professional
> in the boring, "non-technical-communicator" things
> like design, layout and (Heaven forbid!) typography?
Doc project break down:
50% - Learn products & technology
25% - Write (from my knowledge, not from SME notes)
20% - Edit (ruthlessly)
5% - Fonts, structure, style, etc.
I uphold this in most all projects.
> Personally, I believe that the average quality of
> writing *everywhere* is pathetic...but I *also*
> consider appreciation for and knowledge of
> presentation skills such as design, layout, and
> typography to be a part of each true professional's
> stock in trade.
Yes. At the tech writing academy, design, layout, and typography are all covered
in Tech Writing 101 (TW101). In tech writing 201 - 901 we spend time actually
producing useful documentation based on valuable content and realizing that most
of the crap we learned in TW101 was of only marginal interest of value.
> After all, people are confronted with carefully
> designed materials all day--and making technical
> documentation *look* appealing is a part of actually
> getting it read to begin with!
No. Most readers (except other writers of course) could give a crap about layout
and fonts. They just want data. This is why text files are so damn popular.
> Likewise, layout should complement the writing and
> make it accessible.
Double-click README.TXT - got it.
Can't get more accessible than that.
> Of course, far be it from me to suggest that your
> example work product in a "1K text file" was not as
> good as you claimed...but the best written
> documentation is not worth a d*** if it isn't read by
> the poor sod trying to get some work done with the
> tool they don't...quite...understand yet.
And a lot of pretty fonts and tirelessly single-sourced docs aren't going to do
our sod much help if the information is all wrong or incomplete because the tech
writer was too busy futzing with FrameMaker templates to bother looking at the
content.
Our sod would have been better off with a text file from the engineer.
Andrew Plato
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