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I have been the sole technical writer for a company of about 19
programmers and, originally, no qc department. Over the last year they
have hired 6 qc people and a qc manager.
Now, whenever they qc a new executable in our suite, they also qc the
help, which I think is a good thing. However, now they have started
changing my sentences. Not saying that the content is wrong, just
changing the order of my sentences, or the sentence structure.
Additionally, they are telling ME where I should put topics in my
manuals and my on-line help. I have 26 on-line help projects and 24
manuals. It's not that easy to move a topic from one manual to another
when in the other 24 manuals we may reference the original manual in
which it appeared.
Finally, they will copy an entire two or three pages of the manual or
on-line help, make changes to it, and email it to me without marking the
changes. There may only be one or two words that they want changed and
I'm supposed to read through it, word by word, and find them. Or, they
tell me, just insert the new one into the online help and the manual.
Yes, right, and redo all of the formatting, yada yada.
My question is, is this normal for a qc department to do this? Writing,
to me, is highly subjective and just because you don't like the way I
phrased something, doesn't mean it is wrong.
I feel they should only make changes if some is incorrect, misleading or
confusing. It has gotten kind of heavy handed. I really need some
feedback on this..I'm going to schedule a meeting with QC and I need to
know what the norm is, if there is one.
Carol S. Peruzzi
Paralegal/Technical Writer
Eastern Software Corporation
50 S. Water Avenue
Sharon, PA 16146
Phone: 724-981-5087
Fax: 724-981-5092
www.easternsoftware.com
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