Re: Stalking the wiley tech writer
G'day all.
I doubt there's a functioning technical pubs department
out there that can spare anybody for this idea, either,
but... try this...
It doesn't have to be someone in the department that does the following, though. Read on.
It seems to me that an enterprising journalism student
or anthropologist could find material for an article or
a series or a dissertation, if s/he were to follow a
writer or a writing project around for a while, and
record what actually happens.
I recently brought my 14-year-old son to my client's site -- it was Job Shadow day in the 8th grade in the Peel School Board.
He brought a list of generic questions -- what do you do, where do you do it, what skills and education are required, that sort of thing.
He ran out of writing room when he was writing down all the tasks I have just on THIS contract. I also explained that every contract is different; some require an even wider range of tasks. I also listed the additional things I have to do because I freelance, like marketing and accounting.
Tim followed me around all day, going to meetings, helping me assist an engineer in logging documents into a tracking database, listening to my end of phone conversations while I tracked down outstanding bits of information and overdue review comments.
By the end of the day, he was suitably impressed. "Gee, Mom, I thought all you had to do was write!"
It was an interesting exercise for both of us. Having to explain what you're doing and why, and how it fits into the big picture, gives you a really good visualization of that big picture. It's too easy some days to get sidetracked by the details.
Win
----------------
Win Day
Technical Writer
http://www.wordsplus.net
mailto:winday -at- wordsplus -dot- net
http://members.home.net/winday/index.html
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