Re: TECH. WRITING SURVEY - OPINIONS REQUESTED

[Fabien Vais <phantoms -at- ACCENT -dot- NET>]

This is a pretty grim picture you paint here! Each one of the points you
bring up could be the topic of a thesis. Do you really believe people are
going to take the time to expand and elaborate significantly on all these
topics? I'm sorry, I simply don't have that kind of time.

Fabien Vais
phantoms -at- accent -dot- net

At 09:06 AM 7/28/97 -0700, you wrote:
>we are conducting research into the work undertaken by "technical
>writers", either as employees or under "freelance contractors".
>
>if you are involved in any way with documentation and manuals, both on
>paper or electronic, and as managers or readers as well  --  then we
>would
>appreciate receiving your knowledgeable comments and opinions on any or
>all of the following observations:
>
>1.  a study by xerox reported in 1986 that more than 80% of all manuals
>produced by the fortune 1000 companies were seldom opened more than
>twice;
>this represented an estimated 3 trillion pages costing $75 Billion.
>
>2.  an analysis of more than 40 textbooks on how to prepare "manuals"
>shows that the fundamental process remains unchanged since before world
>war II; replacing a typewriter with a computer has done little to reduce
>the time and costs involved nor to improve the quality of the results.
>
>3.  the wrong people are using the wrong tools in the wrong way to do
>this
>work; the vast majority of "technical writers" (including in-house
>employees who "did" the policy manual) were never trained nor hired for
>the work, and personally don't like doing it.
>
>4.  most technical communications groups appear to be network forums for
>find project-related jobs or for "ad hoc" frequently asked questions
>about
> how to do the work  --  very little is done about research into the
>work
>and the disciplines and techniques that are involved.
>
>5.  most developers of engineered systems and products do not know how
>to
>interface with those who must prepare the documentation needed to
>support
>their work  --  because of this, the real losers are those who must rely
>on the documentation.
>
>6.  the key priority of using documentation has little to do with how
>"pretty" the manuals are; readers want 3 key features:
>
>     a.  functional organization,
>     b.  consistent presentation,
>     c.  accurate and complete content.
>
>7.  wordprocessing and page composition packages are not "systems" i.e.
>they do not process data independently nor add value to it  --  as
>singular work tools, they are extremely labour intensive and clumsy for
>the task.
>
>8.  documentation and manuals are an expense -- in most cases, they do
>not
>generate revenue for the developer  --  most technical writers have no
>expertise in costing and budgeting for this work, address only part of
>the
>entire process, and fail to report the total costs to management  --
>management has no understanding of the true costs involved and fail to
>appreciate the value and importance of the results.
>
>- - - - - - -
>
>we will appreciate your contributions and comments; copies of our
>findings
>will be sent to all participants who request.
>
>thank you for your assistance.
>
>sincerely,
>
>jack w. bonney,
>
>vancouver canada
>
>ssi_can -at- istar -dot- ca
>
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to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html