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In response to Pat's comments about military training, I wanted to add
my 2 cents:
Many people (not necessarily Pat) assume that military training is
written to such a basic level because the military is composed of young,
unskilled (dumb) people. Actually, I even thought it was the case when
I first started (forgive my new writer arrogance). However, I
discovered a little more about my audience -- they are expected to
repair aircraft under "field conditions". Field conditions can be
described as dark, stormy, freezing, wet, or nasty, blistering "burn the
skin" weather -- even under heavy bombardment. Under those conditions,
you don't want to have to take the time to figure out what the writer
meant. It had better be obvious!
This outlook gave me a new understanding of what my audience required
from their documentation. I no longer resented writing at a 6th grade
level or repeating procedures or doing anything that made my user's life
a little easier. I think some sort of audience needs analysis had BETTER
be done or you could be missing the whole point.
Teresa Wittel
NCS Sr. Information Developer
Mailto: WITTTE -at- ncslink -dot- com
