TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:RE: Someone to do the "donkey work" From:Fred Ridder <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 4 Mar 2009 11:49:35 -0500
If adding links to external documents is scut work, it makes even less sense for managers and editors to be doing it, since they are presumably paid more highly than you and your fellow writers. The task has already rolled downhill to a lower-cost level, and unless there is someone farther downslope from you, it looks like you're it.
On the other hand, it might be argued that inter-document links require someone who has an overall knowledge of the whole document set and the tasks and processes that your customers are trying to perform, and that writers are working in silos and don't have the necessary overall view. But if you follow that argument, then what you're talking about is *not* lowly scut work that can be "relegated to a data entry person".
Either way, it looks like you're the donkeys. But at least you're employed donkeys, which is not a given in today's economy, and particularly not in the financial services industry.
-Fred Ridder
> Subject: Someone to do the "donkey work"
> Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 10:22:01 -0600
> From: david -dot- downing -at- Fiserv -dot- com
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> I'm currently in the midst of doing a task that has to be done as part of the process of preparing a manual to submit to our editor -- and which seems like it's something the writers shouldn't be stuck doing. (Actually, the department manager and the editor used to do it, but then they decided each writer should do it for their own manuals.) The task is to locate every manual reference and add the proper hyperlink by then locating the PDF name of the referenced manual and pasting that in as the hyperlink. It can take a long time and it seems like the kind of "donkey work" that ought to be relegated to a data entry person. Of course, we don't have the budget to bring in a data entry person.
>
> Anyway, I was wondering how other folks here handled this sort of situation. If you're an employee, so you have someone in your department to do the donkey work? If you're a contractor, do you farm out the donkey work to someone?
>
> David Downing
> Senior Technical Writer
> Credit Union Solutions
> Fiserv
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor, Microsoft Word or
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. http://www.doctohelp.com
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
