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Subject:RE: been asked for advice by "non-writers"? From:"Sarah Blake" <Sarah -dot- Blake -at- nice -dot- com> To:"techwr-l" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 6 Nov 2012 16:57:10 +0000
> Have you been asked for writing advice by an engineer, a developer, or some other SME? If so, what sort of advice were they looking for?
A new member of Support was referred to me for writing advice; her seniors had asked her to write a troubleshooting document, but didn't like her initial couple of drafts so pointed her in my direction.
I reviewed the latest draft of the document, sat down with her to discuss technical writing best practices and the reasons behind them, and... discovered that that was the way she'd written her initial draft, and that her bosses had insisted on changes that made the document less clear and worse structured. After a bit of three-way back-and-forth, we updated the Word styles she was using, slapped a prettier cover on the front, and the result was accepted without any changes in structure or content.
I died a little bit inside.
In fact, mostly I find that SMEs only consult me to get the latest corporate template or troubleshoot Word style issues.
Sarah Blake
Senior Technical Writer
+44 1344 86 5123
NICE - Intent. Insight. Impact.TM
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