Re: The Writer's Kit

[John Posada <john -at- TDANDW -dot- COM>]

Jim...interesting question.

My suggestion is that a tech writer should be ready to have any tool that a client
may justify ably request to perform their assignment.

I was in a similar situation last October.  I interviewed for a contract and based
on the interview, decided that FrameMaker was the appropriate tool.  The day I
received notification of getting the contract, I placed an order for FrameMaker.

Lacking any other details other than your message, if you discussed this situation
with the client, at some point prior to the customer expressing the details of the
assignment, you should have discovered the need for PageMaker.  Then, you would
have been prepared for when the client brought up the subject, to response that
"When the assignment begins, I will have and be productive on that application.
What I should have prior to the start is immaterial."

The question of what is an appropriate tool is as much a part of technical
communication as writing.  It doesn't matter what you have in your possession.
What you need to have is the "ability" to be productive at any assignment that you
commit to regardless of the tool, or don't take the assignment.  The client can
expect anything and since they have the money, have a right to ask that the
contractor/employee do something a particular way with a particular tool.  All you
have to do is agree (and get the tool) or not agree (and turn away the business).

(Beware...strong opinion coming!)

A technical writer must be able to handle the complete spectrum of requirements to
put information in the hands of the user.  Short of that, it's not what you should
be expected to do or not do...it's how good are you as a technical writer.  In my
opinion, a tech writer that is the best "pure" writer in the state but a novice in
the tools to get the words to output media is only a mediocre technical writer.

JIMCHEVAL wrote:

> Recently I got some gentle jibing from a client who insisted that I "should"
> have Pagemaker since I was a technical writer.  My own opinion was that
> Pagemaker was a desktop publishing tool and not a writing tool per se, and it
> certainly wasn't reasonable to just expect that I would have it (I had in fact
> explicitly said I didn't during our first meeting.)  Nor that writing services
> would necessarily include printer-ready layout.
>
> My question: what do members of this list consider basic components of a
> freelance TW's kit - i.e., what's a 'must', what's a 'should' and what's a
> 'nice to have'?  I'm thinking both hardware and software here. (I've checked
> the archive and we've knocked around lots of closely related ideas, but not,
> so far as I can find, this one in particular.)
>
> To put it another way, what should a client expect a freelancer will
> reasonably have available as a matter of course?
>
> Also, how much has desktop publishing implicitly become part of our job
> description? Word has aspects of DTP, but my Word files have been sent
> elsewhere for pre-press work. Whereas this most recent client expects it all
> as part of TW work.
>
> Comments?
>
> Jim Chevallier
> Los Angeles
> =========================================================
> Visit Chez Jim: Jim Chevallier's Home Page - http://www.gis.net/~jimcheval
> =========================================================

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