TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:SMEs and me From:"Sierra Godfrey" <kittenbreath -at- hotbot -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Wed, 05 Jul 2000 10:35:09 -0700
Hello,
A few questions:
How often do SMEs give you their write-up of a manual, or at least the information, before you start on your work? Would you say that this is a common thing to happen?
If you do have experience with SMEs giving you their information in what they think is a manual (or other output) format, how much liberty do you take to change it into readable and digestible information (what we all are trained to do as technical writers)?
This goes back to an earlier post about the engineer here infecting my mind with his propaganda. I ask the questions above because I'm catching a lot of flack now from him for formatting his information (with much addition of my own research) into a user manual, different from the way he originally wrote it. He didn't want anything changed.
And while we're at it, how often do you have the problem of just being about to send the manual off to the printer and then being told you can't because there are so many changs to be made suddenly by the SME? What do you do other than stress out?
