atw: Re: I'm going into a documentation management role
- From: Bob Trussler <bob.trussler@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:59:46 +1000
Stuart,
My work has mostly been with computer people and there are always one or two
in a team who manage to find obscure functions in Word and use them, or
misuse them, to their own satisfaction. I only reformat their output when I
have to publish it on the web, or when it all turns to porridge.
Many computer people are too 'creative' to tie down to a template, which is
why I give them an empty document and hope for the best.
The empty document approach is similar to giving them an existing document
and asking them to use that format. The main difference is that I have
stripped out most of the words. So far, it seems to work well.
Bob T
On 20 July 2011 16:55, Stuart Burnfield <slb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Kate, the danger is that you spend an hour trying to make the template
> comprehensive but bulletproof, plus an hour training the writers in its use,
> then they spend an hour writing plus an hour trying to evade the template
> restrictions and apply brute-force formatting, then you spend an hour fixing
> the problems caused by this.
>
> Instead the writers could spend their hour writing and then you would spend
> an hour assembling the document in good techwriterly fashion, stripping out
> the text from the raw source docs and discarding the mangled formatting.
>
> Over time, you'll learn which writers are receptive to the idea of using
> styles, and which ones will go their grave preferring to kick each and every
> paragraph into its own unique position.
>
> Within a few months you might find that you have, say, ten writers using
> your template fairly happily and productively, and two writers still giving
> you their lovingly hand-mangled documents to format and publish. But this is
> still a very good result. No amount of training and template-refining will
> get those last two writers to do as tidy and robust a job with their
> document as you.
>
> Good luck with the job!
>
> Stuart
>
> Terry said:
> > I'm wondering why they are resisting having a technical writer
> > if it seems there's enough work to keep one busy and it would
> > free up the time of the non-writer authors, whose proficiencies
> > I assume lie elsewhere. It would seem to be a much more logical
> > and efficient route to having consistent documents.
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--
Bob Trussler
Phone 0418 661 462
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