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: What would you do? From:Matt Ion <soundy -at- NEXTLEVEL -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 30 Jul 1996 07:43:25 -0800
On Tue, 30 Jul 1996 08:20:30 +0000, Tracy Boyington wrote:
>> Sue Gallagher found errors in a marketing publication from a Technical
>> Writing Contract firm.
>They probably would appreciate it. I'm sure they would also
>appreciate it if Sue accidentally paid them twice. But that doesn't
>mean she should.
>As someone pointed out previously, if she points out the mistakes in
>their marketing materials, they will probably correct those
>mistakes. But what about the rest of their work? Will Sue be expected
>to edit that, too?
>Some have said that this might simply be the work of a marketing
>person who isn't involved in the actual writing, and that the writers
>probably do much better work. Maybe so. But it still reflects on
>*somebody's* attention to detail. If the owner or chair or whatever
>of this group doesn't bother to look at the marketing materials, or
>*did* look at them and said "this is good enough for me!", wouldn't
>you consider that a bad sign?
One could argue that the marketing heads don't necessarily KNOW proper
usage, which is why they employ professional writers in the first
place. They may care very much that numerous very bad and very obvious
errors are going out in their promotional material, but just don't
realize it because no-one ever pointed it out to them.
It's easy to see the extremes and assume everyone in the chain that
brings you such tripe is a fool, but there's really a lot of middle
ground to consider. To use the construction field as an analogy again,
a hack worker in a cabinet shop may turn out dozens of cabinets with
some well-hidden flaw that doesn't become apparent until the cabinets
are installed and used. So if you're a contractor who installs one of
these cabinets for someone, and you find the flaw, do you assume that
EVERYONE at the company that supplied the cabinets is an incompetent
boob and just never buy them again, or do you inform someone there in
the hopes that they can root out Mr. Fumblefingers and get rid of him?
Your friend and mine,
Matt
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Why don't blind people skydive?
A: It scares the heck out of their dogs.
Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Next Level
Productions, or anyone else of sound mind from this planet or dimension!
TECHWR-L List Information
To send a message about technical communication to 2500+ list readers,
E-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send administrative commands
ALL other questions or problems concerning the list
should go to the listowner, Eric Ray, at ejray -at- ionet -dot- net -dot-
