Re: Essential Technical Writing Skills

["Gary S. Callison" <huey -at- interaccess -dot- com>]

On Thu, 29 May 2003, George -dot- Mena -at- esstech -dot- com (George Mena) wrote: 
> * Both male technical writers and journalists are probably best served
> learning how to take shorthand as well. Makes deciphering the notes
> taken during an interview a lot easier, especially when you get only
> one shot at getting it all down on paper.

I have no shorthand, and abominable handwriting, but I deal with this in a
couple ways. 

Short interviews happen at my desk. I have a spare chair and a ton of
whiteboard space, and I'm generally sitting at the computer, so I can draw
stuff on the whiteboards or type it up as it happens. 

Big meetings happen in conference rooms. My latest genius idea is to take
one of the 2'x4' whiteboards out of my cube, and put it on the conference
room table. As plans develop, they go onto the whiteboard. Everybody sees
it get written down, and gets a chance to discuss problems with it. Then,
when the plan is done and the meeting is over, the whiteboard with the 
plan on it goes back on the wall in my cube.

After either one of these, I set aside a couple minutes to type out all of
the important stuff that took place, while it's fresh in my mind. 

-- 
Huey


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