RE: Benchmarking Technical Documentation

["Karen E. Black" <kblack_text -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Couple letters jutxaposed (just try and pronounce THAT! Can anyone say 
larnyx?); a few passive constructions here and there; I've pirnted docs that 
got my editors a few times; incomplete sentences. We knwo what is meant by 
the context. My fingers make some of the same mistakes writing cursive as 
they do typing.

For the careful reader, the cumulative effect of typographic and grammatic 
(or should that be grammatical? Correct me, somebody, before I mistype 
again!) errors that got by technical review, proofreading, and developmental 
editing, especially with fast turnaround, are what contribute to the overall 
impression of whether or not the document is usable. For the careful reader 
(such as me, not necessarily the competent user), these errors are 
distracting.

For the purposeful reader, What is it? What does it do? How does it do it? 
etc., are what counts. He or she barely notices the occasional glitch.

Let's do what we can in the time we have. For the devout among us, what's 
wrong with a Persian flaw?

Karen E. Black
Technical Writer
www.dhltd.com
--------------------------------------------
Me: "I wish I'd listened to my mother...."
Why, what did she say?
Me: "I don't know, I wasn't listening."
--Unknown female comic

"When you kids were little, you were so cute I could've eaten ya. Now I wish 
I had."
-- My mother, thanks to Joan Rivers