Re: Variety in Tech Writing (was: Display, Displays, or Appears)

[Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>]

Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> If I 
> clicked on "File" and didn't get the dropdown list, or 
> on "Print" and didn't get a print window my first 
> thought would be that either (a) the program wasn't 
> working correctly, or (b) the writer of the instruction 
> wasn't.

The ambiguity you're now coping with is why a statement of the correct 
result is valuable. The writer could write herself out of your train of 
doubts, focusing your attention on the problem by adding the result 
dimension to the instruction:

>> 3. Choose print options from the print window.
       The Print dialog box appears.

>> 4. Click "OK" to print.

I read the absence of a result as indicating a bored, lazy tech writer.

Finding a bored, lazy tech writer in the manual is, like finding body 
hair in the jello, a just cause to stub out a butt in it. "It" refers to 
the jello or manual, but further signs of undisciplined tech writing 
might make me want to shift that focus to the writer.

If the discussion is about trivial instruction writing, then I disavow 
what I am saying. I hate even thinking about the boredom and ennui I 
experience writing trivial stuff for n00bians. I've poned whole herds of 
them from moving trains, I'm full up, can't take no more.

Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com


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