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Paul DuBois noted:
>
> I tend to agree. It's such reasoning that leads to things like:
>
> Move the mouse to postion the cursor on the screen over the image of
> the button containing the word "okay", then click the mouse button to
> send a signal to the computer to perform the action logically
> associated
> with the button image.
>
> Rather than:
>
> Use the mouse to click the "okay" button.
>
> The latter is less technically accurate, but corresponds more to how
> people think and act.
The latter instruction is accurate enough for the intended audience. The
extra precision of the former instruction isn't adding any value in this
case.
> Having said that, there probably are audiences when the
> former approach is betters.
>From Kim's Rules of Technical Writing:
Rule #1--Know your audience.
>From Kim's Useful Acronyms of Technical Writing:
TMI--Too Much Information
One of the challenges of technical writing is in knowing when to *stop*
adding information. I was told by one of my instructors that this is the
bane of "technical" technical writers (such as me :).
This kind of judgement call is exactly the kind of thing we're paid to do.
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