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: Writing to your audience From:Phil <philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com> To:Dan Goldstein <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com> Date:Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:01:05 +0700
Great story, both from Peter and Dan's response. Reminds me of Tufte's re-telling of the Space Shuttle disaster and how all the facts were known by the engineers, but nobody at NASA understood what they meant.
On 28 Feb 2011, at 21:42, Dan Goldstein wrote:
> I passed this on to a science educator I know. Her response was, "Why
> blame Sachse for his failure to communicate? Why not blame the other
> chemists for their failure to understand?"
>
> I explained to her that, from my point of view as a tech writer, it's
> never the audience's fault if they fail to understand me.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Neilson
> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 1:15 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Writing to your audience
>
> I happened to be looking up cyclohexane and came upon this short piece:
>
>http://www.chem.yale.edu/~chem125/125/history/Baeyer/Sachse.html
>
> It tells of Hermann Sachse's discovery in 1890 of the correct
> conformational structure of cyclohexane, and of his failure to
> communicate it to other organic chemists. He even made 3-D models, but
> his work was rejected precisely because it required the reader to cut
> out and fold a paper model. "It is not possible," wrote a reviewer, "to
> write an abstract of this paper, especially since the author's
> explanations are hardly understandable without models."
>
> Sachse produced various explanations of the structure, using very hairy
> trigonometry and geometry, that no chemist bothered reading. He died
> three years later. The structure was not validated until 1918, and not
> fully recognized until 1950.
>
> The article concludes with:
>
> "Know your audience, and express yourself in terms they can understand."
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
> Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
> Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.
>http://www.doctohelp.com
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com -dot-
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/philstokes03%40googlemail.com
>
>
> To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
>http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.
>
> Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat
>
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days. http://www.doctohelp.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
