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Subject:RE: Handling List Requests (was Case Study) From:Tom Murrell <trmurrell -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 20 Jun 2003 07:45:41 -0700 (PDT)
--- Mark Baker <mbaker -at- ca -dot- stilo -dot- com> wrote:
>
> > I would not blame the poster for choices of
> > interpretation that I make about it.
>
> But surely the poster in question is a technical communication
> student and is therefore supposed to be learning how to analyse an
> audience and express themselves clearly to that audience.
>
> If technical writers are not expected to take blame for the incorrect
> interpretation that their core audience puts on their words, then woe
> betide us both as an occupation and as members of the wider
community.
Let's not get talking past each other, Mark. I agree with you that
writers have the obligation to write clearly. My point concerned how
ambiguities are interpreted by readers. Just because a post, or a
writing, is vague doesn't give me as a reader license to assume
information not presented in the writing. And if correcting a poorly
worded post was the objective, making assumptions not supported by the
text seems to me to miss the opportunity being afforded.
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