Re: TW and/or information designer? (was: Really caring about communication)

["Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>]

Anthony Davey wrote:
> Bonnie Granat wrote:
>
>> We are like building contractors, not like architects.
>>
>> This is what I mean:
>>
>> -  We take the raw material -- the content that is designed by
>> another -- and we craft its meaning into a message to our audience.
>>
>> -  We respect the integrity of the raw material -- the content -- 
and
>> we don't mess it up. We don't pollute it, we don't alter it, we
don't
>> do anything that will change its essential nature. If we do any of
>> those things, the building we construct will collapse. Content
is --
>> in a sense -- sacred. It can mean life or death, as we all know too
>> well. So, if we are adults working the field of technical writing,
we
>> know that keeping the absolute pristine technical accuracy of the
>> content is our responsibility. It really goes without saying. If it
>> doesn't, something is serious wrong in the world. ; )
>>
>> -  We construct a building (a message to our audience) using the
>> content. We carefully handle the content, but our real skill is in
>> how we construct our building (our message to our audience).
Without
>> skill in constructing our message, we have a building that is
>> technically pristine, but incomprehensible.
>>
> Bonnie,
>
> This gets right to the heart of my (new) upcoming thesis title...
Are
> we just building contractors?  Say your raw material is an interview
> with an SME: admittedly you won't add any rubbish that will make the
> end result unsound, but you will add some packing materials, some
> punctuation.  I say, you'll even go so far as to design the
building.
> You'll add white space, you'll add to the original material to make
> its presentation what you feel the end user wants or needs; you'll
> remove
> bits of extraneous material, you will hone it until until it looks
> like something that you think is good.  And you're not an architect?
>
> Which brings me to the question the thesis will examine ... where,
in
> practice, does the technical writer stop and the information
designer
> begin? Or do they overlap?
>
> Ant
>

Hi, Ant,

My analogy has numerous flaws; were I to work on something for
publication, I would probably change it -- a lot. In a sense, I like
yours better, but I was aiming at the idea that the technical content
*was* the message.

Maybe a costumer for a play is a better analogy for my own purposes.
The character must be revealed as he or she is; we dress it -- yes, we
design aspects of it -- but we do not mess around with the essence of
the character.  (Needs much more work, but I trust the general idea
comes through.) Your pointing out our role as designers is quite
right, and my analogy doesn't realliy allow for that.

With regard to the roles you named, yes, I think they overlap some of
the time, depending on the authority that the techical writer has to
design and implement the structures for delivery of information.

Best wishes to you on your thesis!


Bonnie Granat
www.granatedit.com




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