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

["Ron Hearn" <rhearn -at- central1 -dot- com>]

I have had such comments from SMEs such as "This is wrong!" (without
saying what is right) and the ever-helpful "WTF!".

Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+rhearn=cucbc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+rhearn=cucbc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Janice Gelb
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:32 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ...
GEEZ!

Doug Cuff wrote:
>> The reason it got me upset was that, by just rewriting the passage
>> himself, as opposed to telling me what needed to be corrected, he
seemed
>> to be saying, "You're making such a mess of this that I don't think
>> you're capable of understanding what the problem is, so I'm just
going
>> to have to do it for you." 
> 
> I still get the impression it says, "I am able to express my own
thoughts in my own writing but am
> unable to edit someone else's writing."
> 
> People with skills sometimes forget that not everyone possesses them,
not even to a small degree.
> It took me awhile to realize that not everyone can do what I do--I
guess partly because I endured
> so many years of people assuming that they could.
>  

I don't think that the SME's task was to edit
the author's writing. The task was to note and
possibly correct the technical content of the
information. Saying "This is confusing/doesn't
include this necessary information/is technically
incorrect" does not require editing or writing
skills.

While I probably would rather get a rewrite than
a useless question mark at the side of the page,
as I've seen in the past, I still think that it's
not unreasonable for the writer to want to tactfully
let the SME know that for future reviews, the most
efficient solution is for the SME to indicate what's
wrong rather than rewriting it. The SME probably
thinks that providing new text is helpful and perhaps
would be grateful to learn that all that is expected
is an indication of what needs to be changed to make
the text technically accurate.

-- Janice

***********************************************************
Janice Gelb          | The only connection Sun has with
janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com  | this message is the return address
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