Re: Simply

["Connie Giordano" <connie -at- therightwordz -dot- com>]

In my experience, lots of others besides marcom folks will add the fluff.  Programmers, and QA folks, and Admin Assistants and Product Managers, and anyone other than a professional writer who've been tasked with writing documentation often do these kinds of things. Symptomatic of the mindset that "anyone can do this writing thing so why should we pay a professional?."  

It's easy to blame marcom, but bad writing is bad writing and comes from many sources in an organization that lacks good communicators from either tech or marcom.

Connie P. Giordano
The Right Words
Communications & Information Design
(704) 957-8450 (cell)

www.therightwords.com
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."   - Walt Disney


>  -------Original Message-------
>  From: Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
>  Subject: Re: Simply
>  Sent: 30 Apr '07 13:15
>  
>  This is marcom stuff.  It may serve a purpose in pre-sales
>  ad text, but not in user instructions.
>  
>  Gene Kim-Eng
>  
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Chris Borokowski" <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com>
>  To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
>  Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 9:58 AM
>  Subject: Simply
>  
>  
>  >I encounter this sentence frequently in documentation:
>  >
>  > "To fix the widget, simply click the Fix Widget button
>  > and drag the widget onto the wood chipper icon."
>  >
>  > What benefit is derived from this extra word? That it
>  > is a one-click event? I am confused, nay, I am
>  > burdened, by these troublesome queries.

>  
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