Re: Refining My "Cutting Edge" Technical Writing Skills Post

["Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- editors-writers -dot- info>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Goober Writer" <gooberwriter -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: September 17, 2003 09:31 AM
Subject: Re: Refining My "Cutting Edge" Technical Writing Skills Post


>
> > Yeah, like having your supervisor say, "Why'd it
> > take you so long to learn how
> > to document that? You're being paid to write, so 80%
> > of your time should be
> > writing, not fiddling with the software. If it takes
> > you so long to learn this
> > technology that you're writing less than a quarter
> > of the time, perhaps you're
> > not up to the task of quickly absorbing the
> > technology and writing about it."
>
> Interesting scenario Bonnie. Allow me to pontificate
> on how I would handle it. *vbg*
>

I'm suggesting that, let's say, three weeks researching for every one week
actually creating the documentation is a ratio that might offer another reason
for the existence of so much inferior documentation. It simply should not take
that long to learn the product one is documenting, in my opinion. And if it
does, the amount of time and care spent on creating good documentation should
be commensurately increased. I offer as evidence the current quality of a good
deal of the documentation that now exists. Perhaps I am wrong, though. This is
my sense of the way things should be, but I'd be interested in what others
have to say.

___________________________
             Bonnie Granat
      Granat Editorial Services
 http://www.editors-writers.info
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