Re: Technical Writers vs. Technical Communicators

[Elaine M Brennan <ELAINE -at- BROWNVM -dot- BITNET>]

On Wed, 26 May 1993 11:33:04 EDT John Sanders said:

>Recently, in an article about SGML, Elizabeth Gilmore said: "For authors this
>means that we can focus on writing content. We can be writers without having
>to be desktop publishers as well. We can devote ourselves to conveying
>meaningful information..."

>Now, I have come to think of myself not just as an author or technical writer,
>but as a technical communicator. The difference, as I see it, is that I am
>comfortable in a variety of mediums besides print, and that often to properly
>convey information I have to make sure that information is presented in the
>right way.

>Sure your words may be meaningful, but with the wrong presentation, the
>message can be lost.

>I know that the advantage of SGML is that the definition of its elements is
>a structured process, and that furthermore standards are being developed to
>make SGML multimedia, but are we back to being writers and not communicators?
>Can we really setup information using these tools without thought to the final
>format(s)?? Even with an explicit structure?

I think you're making a couple of over-large leaps here.

One of the beauties of using SGML to prepare a structured document is
that you can then format the output anyway you like -- SGML is *not*
about formatting.  If your formatting reflects the structure of your
document, you will, in fact, find it relatively easy to produce output
that you're happy with, by passing your document through a particular
filter, set of filters, or other software tools. I consistently take
a single SGML-encoded document and prepare it in 4 or 5 different
formatted presentations, depending on what the purpose of the presentation
is.  I don't have to change the document at all; I simply change the
formatting.

Elaine Brennan
Assistant Director
Women Writers Project
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Elaine_Brennan -at- brown -dot- edu