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Subject:RE: Silly but important to me - another twist From:"Martinek, Carla" <CMartinek -at- zebra -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 2 Sep 2004 13:01:23 -0500
-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: Silly but important to me - another twist
TecWriter1 -at- aol -dot- com wrote:
>
> To expand on this, where do most of you think supporting/descriptive
> text for a procedure should go? In our equipment instructions,
> there is usually no "result" to report. It's "remove the thingy"
> or "insert the thingamajig into the whatchamacallit."
>
> The supporting text might be something such as
> "The thingy is located in the upper right corner of the control
> panel."
Don't I need to know where the thingy is before you tell me how to
remove it?
Bonnie Granat
If this is a technical manual, you should be able to write with the assumption that the user has some familiarity with the subject. Tell them what to do, and if they know what to do, they can skip the supporting text and go straight to the next step. The actual procedure to be performed stands clear and alone.
If they don't know where the part is, then the supporting text provides the information they need. It's a matter of writing for your audience, and also of stylistic choices.
*************************
Carla Martinek
cmartinek -at- zebra -dot- com
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