Re: Great technical communication

[Sally Derrick <sjd1201 -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I also read the article, or at least I read as much as I had time for. From
a writing perspective, I thought the list of statistics at the beginning of
the article failed to add any substance to the article because it did not
provide comparative data.  For example, "An estimated 854,000 people, ...,
hold top-secret security clearances." I have no doubt that it is an accurate
number. However, from the standpoint of how much the hidden world has grown
since 9/11, this number is irrelevant without telling me how many were there
prior to 9/11. A couple of the list items were addressed later in the
article, and again I admit that I fully read only the first 10 pages or so,
then skimmed the rest. Maybe I missed something.

The fact that I did not get through the entire article is the main reason
for my dissatisfaction with this list of statistics.  Many, many, many
people do not have time (or the attention span) to read 16 screens of a news
story.  They read the first few paragraphs to get the gist and rush off to a
meeting or off to soccer practice or out to mow the lawn.  They form their
entire opinion on a topic off that tiny bit of info. They run around with
their hair on fire screaming "OMG, we have 854,000 people with TS
clearances.  Can you believe it?  That's ridiculous." (because, of course it
must be ridiculous or someone wouldn't have written a whole story about it).
The readers would have very different opinions and responses to the article
if they had that comparison data.  Knowing there were 500,000 prior to 9/11
would get one response but the response would be very different if  there
were 250,000 on 9/11.

I completely agree with the premise of this story (in another life I was one
of those TS clearances writing those thousands of ignored reports) and I
agree that most of it was well-written.  However, IMO, this list of somewhat
related statistics was journalistic sensationalism, not good technical
writing.

Sally

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Richard Mateosian <xrmxrm -at- gmail -dot- com>wrote:

> The Washington Post put together a website
> (http://tinyurl.com/35a8xqe) illustrating the interconnected national
> security agencies and the companies that work with them.
>
> It's a really good example of technical communication. I hope one of
> the nearby STC competitions will invite them to submit it.  ...RM
>
> --
>
> Richard Mateosian <xrm -at- pacbell -dot- net>
> Berkeley, California
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