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.
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> Over the years I have purchased all manner of products, from
> garden park benches to computer cards of all types, whose
> assembly and use instructions were so badly written as to
> literally scream "no writer here." Somehow I managed to get
> all of these things together and working, though in many cases
> not without a substantial amount of cursing and a few skinned
Someone builds something and it looks like a boat, yet when you put
it into the water, it sinks. Or, they build something they call a
boat and when you put it into the water, you need to spend 20 of the
24 hours every day bailing it out or it sinks.
It's wood, just like a boat. It is longer than it is wider, just like
a boat. It even has an engine in the back with a propeller.
Is it a boat? I don't think so. A boat is a boat we know what a boat
does and it does it.
Someone builds a house and they put on it that looks like a roof. It
is made with roofing materials. However, you can see through it and
it in no way stops ANY water, snow, wind, or bugs.
Is it a roof? I don't think so.
Someone puts words on paper that look like intructions on how to do
something. It has numbers, bullets, pictures. However, it is missing
half the strps, some of the steps are wrong, the images don't
corrrespond to what you see in the application when you get to that
point. You only get to the end by making up the missing steps and
disregarding what you see in the written instruction in favor of what
you se in the aplication.
Is it a document? It sure looks like a document. It even has numbers
in the bottom corners just like a document. I don't think it is.
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
"Well, you have to know these things
when you're king, you know." -
--King Arthur of Camelot.
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