RE: Tech writing saves journalism

["Jessica Weissman" <Jessica -dot- Weissman -at- hillcrestlabs -dot- com>]

The documentation in question was from the language/system vendor, a
very large company.  So lots of layers of editing failed, I suppose.

-  Jessica

-----Original Message-----
From: al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com [mailto:al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com]

Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 8:59 AM
To: Jessica Weissman
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Tech writing saves journalism

Jessica Weissman wrote:
> ...I do know of a case in which a large government system was
> down for several days because documentation was incorrect in two ways:
> it left out something tiny but vital and stated something else
slightly
> incorrectly.
>
> I don't know whether this fits the definition of unreasonable harm.
The
> system in question did not handle life or death matters, just lots of
> money going to citizens.
>

Hi Jessica,
This sounds more like a technical review/editing problem than a lack of
application by the writer to the task at hand; however, to be fiar, even
the best reviewer doesn't catch everything, and all of us have had
mediocre technical reviews where the reviewer focuses on the way a
phrase
was twisted rather than the accuracy of the content.  Unfortunately, the
technical writer will be blamed for the error, but that's why we get
paid
the big bucks....

Al



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