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Subject:Re: Ratio of writers to pages they maintain From:jsokohl -at- mac -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 21 Feb 2005 19:26:19 -0700
> This is just a slight variation on the old "How many
> pages per day should a TW be able to write?" question.
> And that question is valid for word processing
> secretaries - not for professional communicators.
>
> In the TW assignment that I am most proud of, it took
> me about a month to compose nine smallish paragraphs.
> In the TW assignment that I am most embarrassed of, I
> cranked out four to six pages a day (for many a
> month).
>
> The objective is effective communications - not word
> or page count. Does not matter if we are creating new
> material or "maintaining" old documentation.
>
Exactly! My question to those who maintain megarepositories of pages...how
many of the existing pages do you revisit on these releases? Do you reduce
page count because you found a better way of expressing something--perhaps
you could clarify procedures written six years ago that no one ever
understood. do you work with the developers to reduce complexity in
interaction that users must perform? These are things that apply to
productivity of writers, not just the number of pages created. And "[t]he
objective is effective communications - not word or page count." is the
message we as professionals have to impart to other teams, other managers,
and other stakeholders.
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