Re: Teaching a writing class for co-workers

["Ashley Gottfried" <ashley -dot- gottfried -at- Wise -dot- com>]

<kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com <mailto:kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com>> wrote in message <news:185449 -at- techwr-l>... 
> 
> Ashley wrote:
> 
> >So far, I'm thinking of covering the following topics:
> >* Review the article writing process (since many of the students have
> >never written one of these articles but will in upcoming months).
> >* Demonstrate how to use the correct template and styles. (I spend a good
> >amount of time each month applying styles to these articles.)
> >* Give tips on organizing information. 
> >* Provide guidelines on writing clear procedures. 
> 
> First of all - beware. You may be teaching others to replace you.
> 
Yes, I've thought about that. But general writing tips classes have been offered to non-writer employees in the past. And in all reality, editing these articles are a small part of my overall duties. 
> On a more optimistic note, I'd skip that second bullet. Very few people
> grasp the idea of document templates, mostly because they just don't care.
> It will be faster for you to correctly apply styles when you're editing,
> than to clean up all the styles they'll use erroneously when armed with 15
> minutes of template knowledge.
> 
> Basically, I'd teach them how to provide you with editable information.
> Give them a checklist of what kind of information you need, and then pour
> your energies into editing their work in such a way as to show how much
> difference a REAL writer can make. Don't waste time training them to
> compete with you; instead, teach them to facilitate your job.
> 
Yes, I think that's great advice. Something I neglected to mention in my original post - my manger asked me to teach this class to the consultants in my department (training and consulting) as they will be assuming writing duties for these articles. I really think that this is more of an introduction into the article development process - so providing a checklist would be helpful. Currently I'm thinking of slapping together a few HTML pages that I can put out on our network that could be a resource for the article process. 

Thanks! 
Ashley Gottfried
Curriculum Technical Writer
Wise Solutions, Inc.
734.456.2204
www.wise.com


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