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Subject:Re: Creativity and Technical Communication From:"Mark L. Levinson" <mark -at- MEMCO -dot- CO -dot- IL> Date:Thu, 27 Mar 1997 15:01:32 -0800
"Creativity" is a misleading word. It sounds as if it means making
a new thing, whereas psychologists tell us that creativity consists
essentially of finding new connections between existing things. (So,
for that matter, does a lot of humor.)
Carolyn Haley is right that technical writing is predominantly
problem-solving. Occasionally, the solution to a problem may be
a creative one. The first writer who said "think of your hard disk
as a filing cabinet" was being creative in explaining the concept
at hand.
But for the most part, the solutions to technical-writing problems
are not particularly creative, they're just elegant. The downside
of creativity is that personalizes your writing. You can get away
with sounding like a distinct individual if you're writing a third-
party manual like a "for Dummies," but not if you're supposed to
be the definitive voice of a technically-oriented corporation.
If the customer of the Veeblefetzer receives a book that reads like
"Joey's Take on Using the Veeblefetzer," then the customer thinks
uneasily, "Would someone else have told me something else? Something
more?"
Everyone would like to be thought of as creative. I saw someone
claiming once in _Advertising Age_ that sending out bills on time
was a form of creativity. But just as not all creative work is
necessarily good, not all good work is necessarily creative.
--
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