Re[2]: Doing your own graphics (an illustrators perspective)

[ROBERT SIDMAN <ROBERT_SIDMAN -at- FMSO -dot- NAVY -dot- MIL>]

John Posada wrote:
Obviously, you come from an environment that has all the specialized expertise
you could ever want, available whenever you want it.

However...while that may be true in the government and ivory tower
environment, in the trenches, we do whatever we need to, to create a document
to the best of our abilities.

=============

I'm a federal computer systems programmer doing other duties as assigned --
technical writing, particularly Internet/Intranet design/editing/writing.

Like my friend, Beverly, I think you doth protest too much out of ignorance. Our
agency (the programming arm of the Navy Supply Corps) has several hundred
programmers; all do their own documentation and have done so for years. This
agency has never had, nor probably never will, a person officially categorized
as a "technical writer."

Any specialized exerpience I have as a tech writer comes from my journalism
background and individual desire to learn. There's nobody here to do specialized
graphics; I don't know where in the Navy you could find one who does.

As for the "ivory tower" come see me in my office, a converted World War II
warehouse windowless building that's hot in the summer, cold in the winter and
is only now being stripped of external asbestos. The parking area next to the
building is unpaved and, for good reason, called every unprintable name because
it's muddy in season and always rutted.

Robert Sidman
<robert_sidman -at- fmso -dot- navy -dot- mil>


Whoa! I need to speak out before too many people think we have it easy here
in the government!  Technical writers? What's a technical writer?  The
software development organization I've worked at for 9 years had a pubs team
that was "optimized away" about 7 years ago. Since then, us programmers have
had to design, analyze, write code, and develop our own users manuals--which
includes writing and illustrating. Oh, and we had to do some of our own
testing, too. But we also used a separate software testing entity. By being
responsible for every step, we learned a lot. I learned that I'd rather be a
technical writer than a programmer!  ;-)

A lot of us government workers are right in the trenches with you.

Beverly Parks -- parksb -at- huachuca-emh7 -dot- army -dot- mil
The opinions expressed are my own.

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