atw: Re: XML - a requirement for a TechWriter looking forwork?
- From: Hedley Finger <hfinger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:45:44 +1000
Stephen:
I think some of you are confusing the art of writing with the act of
publishing.
Art is what novelists do. Craft is what technical writers do.
Good writing is about transmitting ideas and concepts from one human
brain into others with ease and grace. It is a talent that in many
ways can't be
Are you confusing the art of composing -- arranging the thought to be
communicated -- with writing: recording it with a hammer and chisel,
quill, Word, XML or some other recording tool. *^)
Can flick the drafts to some IT nerd to format, publish etc.
Thank you, Stephen, for clarifying my identity confusion. Apparently,
in the 1960s before IT had even been invented, as a production editor at
Reader's Digest, publisher and book editor at Rigby and Pan Macmillan,
editor at ACER, I was an IT nerd. Well, that sorts that out. And I had
been wondering all this time ...
Funny thing how once some programming tool has been learned, it
becomes part of a snobbish upmanship process. There was a time when
DOS knowers stuck it up Mac users for clicking icons instead of
writing command code. The XML argument is much the same.
May le Grand Fromage arrange that in your next job you will be the only
technical writer -- no IT nerds to format you thoughts and will be asked
to document the API of an application written in C++, this documentation
to be recorded in XHTML using Notepad.
I think we have all been required to learn a bit more of technology than
we wanted to throughout our technical writing careers, and few of us
have had the luxury of just writing. And if you bent is towards design
and presentation, it doesn't hurt to know about usable book or web
design, which may require you to learn how to build a template in
FrameMaker or a web site design in Dreamweaver and TopStyle.
Regards,
Hedley
--
Hedley Finger
28 Regent Street Camberwell VIC 3124 Australia
Tel. +61 3 9809 1229 Fax. (call phone first)
Mob. (cell) +61 412 461 558
Email. "Hedley Finger" <hfinger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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