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I agree with your technique for dealing with vagueness. I've always assumed
that's part of my job.
On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:
> "Technical" or "non-technical," if you're not "aggressively" insisting
> that your ignorance of subject matter is some kind of advantage, I don't
> think Richard was talking about you.
>
> My SMEs know they can be this vague with their comments if they need
> something added and aren't sure exactly what the "appropriate" bit of
> information is at the moment they're reviewing a document because they
> know that if I don't have it already I will get it, even if I have come
> back and hound them until I get it from them.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kathleen MacDowell" <kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com>
>
> > In my experience, vagueness is more likely to originate with engineers
> > or
> > software developers who are busy doing their primary job, which is not
> > typically writing instructions or user assistance.
> >
> > As a non-technical technical writer who does an excellent job
> > documenting
> > software and hardware, I also take exception to the whole tenor of
> > your
> > comment. A so-called technical writer who would insert an ambiguous
> > phrase
> > is simply not in tune with the requirements of the job. It doesn't
> > matter if
> > they're "technical" or "non-technical".
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
> Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
> 2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
>http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
>
> 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/
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--
Kathleen MacDowell
www.writefortheuser.com
kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com
kathleen -dot- eamd -at- gmail -dot- com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
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-
