RE: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!

["Victoria Wroblewski" <victoria -dot- wroblewski -at- eagletest -dot- com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Downing, David
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 9:00 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!

> I got an email back from this particular SME this morning in
> which he completely rewrite the function description for me. I'm not
> sure whether to be
> . . .
> How would you take it -- and has anything like this happened to any of
> you?

Going through this right now with an SME of my own ("programmatically"
in an end-user doc?  Really?!?)....

Really, most of the time, they are trying to be helpful.  And it's best
to try and keep them helpful and not discourage them.

With a calm head an some time, you can take the time to explain some of
the "why I did it this way" where you may find vast differences in your
text vs. the SME text.  A lot of the time, SMEs love this - getting a
bit of the tech doc world actually explained to them so they understand
we're more than just writer monkeys.  Sometimes they'll even learn from
what you tell them and you'll see vast improvements in the source docs
you get.

- V

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