Re[4]: Certification Redux

["Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

        Aren't objective standards important here?

I don't know, are they? Whose "objective" standards? Is there some
objective standard about the amount of white space or type size? Is there
some objective standard about the number of steps in a procedure? On a
page? About how many pictures or illustrations should go with it? About
whether the loader should have a "Getting Started" manual as well as an
Operator's Manual?

Even grammar has some pretty fuzzy rules, and you're claiming there are
objective standards beyond that point?

Justice Potter Stewart once wrote, "I can't give you a working legal
definition of pornography, but I know it when I see it!" That's the way it
is with a lot of good tech writing. I've opened plenty of manuals which
aren't designed the way *I* would have designed them, but they were still
quite good.


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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