Re: Ten Technical Writing Stereotypes

[Evan Read <eread -at- iinet -dot- net -dot- au>]

I haven't conducted many surveys myself (and certainly none were to  
become material for classes) but I wondered if the answers should have  
perhaps just been "True", "Sometimes", "False".  I have noticed that  
the narrower the scope of the answer in the survey, the fewer times it  
was selected. I wonder if having several answers selected once, with  
others selected 50 times, makes much sense?

Then again, I am no statistician.

Evan.


On 01/10/2008, at 6:05 AM, Guy K. Haas wrote:

> I took the survey, and in the comments box at the end, I told Tom  
> that in
> many questions I had one answer in mind for the initial question,  
> but then
> the brief paragraph that discussed/explained it jerked me around.
>
> Take this one:
>
> 2. Technical writing stifles your creativity.
>
> Because you spend all day immersed in writing instructional text,  
> your own
> sense of creativity declines. You feel fewer flashes of inspiration  
> and
> generally have less creative drive and desire. You even find yourself
> adopting the same techniques of writing short, clear, dry, humorless
> sentences in your email and journal. True or False?
>
> There are four separate statements there, and I would not answer  
> TRUE or
> FALSE to all of them.  I'd go with TRUE on some and FALSE on others.
>
> In fact, even the first sentence of the paragraph gives me problems --
> even if I spend part of my day installing the latest beta of the  
> product,
> then exercising it, then writing some instructions and exercising the
> product some more, then tracking down an SME to ask what a certain  
> command
> in the GUI means when it says <whatever it says>, I might say that my
> sense of creativity declined -- even though I did NOT spend all day
> "immersed in writing".
>
> Maybe Tom needs to re-chunk the survey into more, briefer questions.
>
> And, when I took the survey an hour or so ago, it was not limited to
> true/false, but offered mostly true, sometimes true/sometimes false,  
> and
> mostly false.
>
> What's up with THAT?
>
> --Guy K. Haas
>  Software Exegete in Silicon Valley
>
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> ComponentOne Doc-To-Help gives you everything you need to author and
> publish quality Help, Web, and print content. Perfect for technical
> authors, developers, and policy writers. Download a FREE trial.
> http://www.componentone.com/DocToHelp/
>
> True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
> Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
> documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as eread -at- iinet -dot- net -dot- au -dot- 
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/eread%40iinet.net.au
>
>
> To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
> http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.
>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ComponentOne Doc-To-Help gives you everything you need to author and 
publish quality Help, Web, and print content. Perfect for technical 
authors, developers, and policy writers. Download a FREE trial.
http://www.componentone.com/DocToHelp/

True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.