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These articles are widely cited. I think they published an update in
_Technical Communication_ within the past couple of years, but I don't
have a citation for it. (I can never remember my member ID to log on to
the members-only area of the STC website.)
Beth Agnew wrote:
>
> There's always someone working on something, but I'm not aware of
anything
> currently that proves our value. It would definitely be worthwhile
pursuing.
>
> In my experience, technical writers are often the only people who can
put
> together the big picture of a product during development because we
touch
> all the stakeholders -- marketing and sales need info from us that
they can
> understand, testing and customer support need info we have on potential
> problems, and training uses our knowledge as a basis for their training
> materials which are in development before the product is ready.
>
> We also often drive a project because of the deadlines we request,
such as
> code freeze (though most developers don't seem to know what that is,
LOL),
> upload to website, or go to printer. Our documentation plan is often the
> first actual document some departments see about a product and its
> deadlines.
>
> And since we talk to just about everyone involved in the product life
cycle,
> we sometimes are the only people who can give an accurate status
report on
> it at any given time.
>
> Hmmm, designing a research study about all this could prove to be
quite an
> accomplishment!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bounce-techwr-l-118812 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:bounce-techwr-l-118812 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]On Behalf Of Phillip
> St. James
>
> Is anyone in the tech comm academic arena doing anything significant
in this
> area currently? Is
> something relevant and reliable already available?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -phillip
> Palo Alto
>
>
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