RE: What is More Important?

["Pinkham, Jim" <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com>]

LOL. OK, so I may have indulged a bit of hyperbole, too, to make my
point about the sine qua non nature of both. However, our documentation,
at times, may quite possibly be essential to the continued survival of
some of mankind.

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Gordon McLean
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 10:38 AM
To: 'Techwr-l'
Subject: RE: What is More Important?

Hardly, unless you are suggesting that our profession is essential to
the continued survival of mankind... Mind you, most people are quick
enough to blame the documentation when things go wrong, we HAVE written
up the birds and bees procedures, right??

G

(long day, too much caffeine, attempt at humour, failed)

-----Original Message-----
From:
techwr-l-bounces+gordon -dot- mclean=grahamtechnology -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+gordon -dot- mclean=grahamtechnology -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr
-l.c
om] On Behalf Of Pinkham, Jim
Sent: 17 May 2007 16:21
To: Techwr-l
Subject: RE: What is More Important?

I was concise. I favored both. Don't be too surprised we "did not JUST
pick one." In our trade, it's a bit like asking, "If forced to pick an
element for your environment, which would you prefer, air or water?" 

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of richard -dot- melanson -at- us -dot- tel -dot- com
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 9:37 AM
To: Janice -dot- Gelb -at- Sun -dot- COM; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: What is More Important?


 Thank you for the segue Janice :-)
I attempted to address a few thoughts I had by asking the group this
question. First I just wanted to get everyone's opinion, simply a choice
of one or the other. I am amazed that almost everyone did not JUST pick
one. I have been a member of this list off and on for the 14 years I
have been a Technical Writer and we all know who the active posters are,
who the lurkers are, etc. I was also looking for a specific response
from two or three members of the list. I initially was not sure if the
response would be on the list or off, but I eventually did get the
response I expected. There are a couple other issues I wanted to address
but I won't waste any further bandwidth. 

Please allow me to close by pointing something out. Did anyone notice
the people who responded and chose technical accuracy did so and were
concise with their explanation. But the people who chose writing well
appeared, to me, to have more passion, more energy, and much lengthier
emails with their explanations. Just my observation. 

Thank you everyone, for taking the time to respond, I sincerely
appreciate the help and insight everyone has shared with me. Take care
and be healthy, now I have a deadline to meet, see you guys in a month
or so  :-) Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+richard -dot- melanson=us -dot- tel -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+richard -dot- melanson=us -dot- tel -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]
On Behalf Of Janice Gelb
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 1:23 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: What is More Important?

Lauren wrote:
>
 > Janice Gelb wrote:
 >>
>> The only purpose to this question that I can see would be for someone

>> looking for an excuse for inelegant writing due to deadline pressures

>> forced by late technical changes.
> 
> I see two possibilities.  One is of a writer that wants more time from

> a project manager to tidy up the document, but the PM says just make 
> it "accurate."  Another possibility is of a PM wants a deliverable to 
> look well-written and the PM doesn't care about the accuracy of the
content.
> I've been in situations where PMs will say that content doesn't matter

> because people won't read the document anyway.
> 

The third possibility, which hadn't occurred to me when I wrote my
original message, is to justify having engineers write documentation
because if accuracy is more important than writing skills then you can
get rid of writers altogether. Note that I am *not* saying that this is
necessarily what the original poster meant. However, because the answer
to his question was obviously going to be overwhelmingly either that you
need both or that technical accuracy was most important if you had to
choose, I immediately had the reaction that the person asking the
question must want to be able to say there was support for his opinion
in some discussion related to the preference of technical accuracy over
writing skill.

-- Janice

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