RE: Writing to your audience

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

I was being facetious.
Either y'all are actually in the majority, 
or you think you are....    :-)

I'm in that bunch who have an audience that's  
all over the world, probably speaks English as 
a second language, has technical training 
(Engineer, tech, systems admin), is familiar 
with our product or our type of product... 
or has never heard of such things before yesterday... 
has a background in data security... 
or didn't know such a thing existed until s/he 
drew the short straw yesterday... 
and so on.

Some come from cultures where it is expected 
that both conversation and instructional material 
get right to the point, and not waste time with 
rambling or ambiguity. Others come from cultures 
where directness is rude and off-putting. Still 
others... well, I don't know. 

What they all have in common (so far) is that 
they work in English, 'cuz there is still not 
a business case to translate my docs. But that's 
this week. 

But wait. I said our audience at least has some 
sort of technical background. Well, that's for 
the ones who use the products. Apparently the 
docs are also read by people who evaluate and 
authorize big purchases for their companies (or 
government departments, etc.), as well as by other 
folks whose job it is to audit processes and 
procedures on contract to our customers or our 
customers' customers.   

 - k

> -----Original Message-----
> From:  Dan Goldstein
> Subject: RE: Writing to your audience
> 
> We who write internal documentation know our audiences very well. Are
> there really so few of us?
> 
> 
> -----Original Original Message-----
> From: McLauchlan, Kevin
> 
> Let's leave aside, for the moment, those few... those lucky[?] few
> techwriters who ever actually get in the same room with their audience
> (or on the other end of an e-mail exchange, for that matter...).
The information contained in this electronic mail transmission 
may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected 
from disclosure. If you have received this communication in 
error, please notify us immediately by replying to this 
message and deleting it from your computer without copying 
or disclosing it.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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- 

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/archive%40web.techwr-l.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