TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
As someone once said,* "The pictorial is to the verbal as a thousand to
one."
* That was me.** ***
** Which reminds me of a punctuation joke. The last words of Nathan Hale
were,
"I regret that I have but one * for my country."
*** Can footnotes have footnotes?
Many writers can't draw their way out of a paper bag, unless they bear down
really hard on the pencil. This is a shameful secret of the tech writing
profession, and is of far more practical importance than whether you know
the Secret Indexer's Handshake (which I will now reveal in print for the
first time: always put an infinite loop in every index).
You may be asking, "Robert, this is probably true of the studly, manly types
who write hardware documentation, but I'm just a software weenie."
This is very true. And it makes me sad. But even software weenies need
diagrams far more frequently than they realize! There are plenty of things
that can be made far clearer with a half-page diagram than with a full page
of text. And people will actually look at the diagram.
Where can one learn the Way of the Technical Illustrator? Does one have to
travel to chilly mountaintops and eat foreign food? Not at all! Your local
community college offers instruction in this noblest of disciplines by both
day and by night. A single term of technical illustration will put you
about six zillion sigmas from the mean. Two terms will grant you godlike
powers, such as the ability to draw computers in three-point perspective.
(Though if you want to be able to draw the human hand so it doesn't look
like a bunch of bananas, you have to study for years. The difference
between a technical illustrator and an artist is that the illustrator can't
draw a human being who doesn't look like a poorly preserved zombie, while an
artist can't draw a computer or an F-16 that doesn't look partly melted.)
So my advice is to abandon your responsibilities to your family in the
evenings and learn technical illustration. Then illustrate everything (well,
not bathroom walls; that's an advanced medium). You will thank me. Or
your family will thank me. Either way works for me.
NEED TO PUBLISH YOUR FRAMEMAKER CONTENT ONLINE?
?Mustang? (code name) is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to Web, intranets, and online Help.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! See a live demo that
will take your breath away: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l3
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
