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--- Charles E Vermette <cvermette -at- juno -dot- com> wrote a very humorous piece that
closed with the following observation:
>
> This is what happens when a TW doesn't want to dig into the technical
> details, be involved in product development, or understand the internal
> and external audience.
Tom Murrell added:
>It seems to me that you have fallen prey to a common mistake: mistaking
>technical communications for marketing communications. I believe the
example
>that you so enjoyably discussed was not technical communications at all.
Rather
>it was marketing communications, which has to be neither precise nor
complete
>nor even particularly accurate.
It's the difference between a recipe book (which is technical writing) and a
menu (which is marketing). (I read a lot of old recipe books for fun: I
think there's a sound argument for Isabella Beeton as the first modern
technical writer. (Among other things, she invented the concept that
transformed written recipes from then on, of giving a list of ingredients
and then giving the method.)
Jane Carnall
Technical Writer and Compendium
of Arcane and Useless Information
Apologies for the long additional sig: it is added automatically and outwith
my control.
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