RE: Knowledge is manufactured?

["Melissa Nelson" <melmis36 -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

What fairy tale character best typifies your
>role in documentation?

Personally I like to think of myself as all the seven dwarfs:

Bashful- Sometimes I tend to get a little bashful when someone is reviewing 
my writing.

Grumpy- I get a little Grumpy when I can't get the cooperation needed for my 
documentation.

Doc- I feel like a doctor when I fix up someone's crappy documentation.

Happy- I feel happy when I finish a great piece of documentation.

Sneezy- I get a little sneezy when I have to brush off some dusty old 
document.

Dopey- I get rather Dopey on Friday afternoons (as this email will attest).

Sleepy- I often go home sleepy at the end of the day.


Melissa


>From: "Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>
>To: "'Dan Goldstein'" <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com>,"'TECHWR-L'" 
><techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
>Subject: RE: Knowledge is manufactured?
>Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 13:19:24 -0700
>
> > From: Dan Goldstein
>
> > WADR to Bear's cool Zen approach, tech writers don't manufacture
> > knowledge. We acquire it and (if we're lucky) transmit it to other
> > people. </nitpick>
>
>I don't acquire any knowledge when I'm documenting something.  I compile
>facts into something cogent and palatable, and then forget about it.  If I
>want to know how to do something that I've documented, then I need to read
>my own documents.  Personally, I wouldn't want many of the jobs that 
>require
>using the technologies that I've documented.  I still like writing about
>them, though, especially when people like their jobs.
>
>Okay, here's a Friday segue.  What fairy tale character best typifies your
>role in documentation?  For me, it's the miller's daughter, later queen, 
>who
>is made to spin straw into gold in Rumpelstiltskin.  The king will have her
>head if she doesn't.  Rumpelstiltskin comes to her aid to help, ultimately
>in exchange for her first born, unless she can tell him his name.  She 
>does.
>
>http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/other/ebooks/Grimm/044.txt
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpelstiltskin
>
>Sometimes, I feel like I'm spinning straw into gold when I document, but
>unlike the girl in the fairytale, I wouldn't marry the king, who seems like
>a very nasty character.  This, to me, seems similar to my not wanting a
>permanent job of spinning straw into gold.  Let the king have his gold, I
>think I'd rather work with Rumpelstiltskin.
>
>Lauren
>
>
>
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