TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
> > But it does have a generally understood meaning ... ?
>
> I ran this problem past my wife who has the good fortune to
> be entirely
> out of this discussion. She's a quality engineer, and knows what's
> involved in getting people to understand stuff, usually stuff
> they would
> prefer to avoid thinking about.
>
> So I asked her to differentiate between invalidated and unvalidated,
> providing her as little context as possible. She defined each one
> correctly, and then said, "But I wouldn't ever use either of
> them. I'd
> find a way to say it that could not be misunderstood."
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I can see where I'm going to have to go back through some docs and to also write all future docs with a lot of clunky phrases or hyphenated terms. To my knowledge, my industry doesn't have the solidified jargon and language restrictions of medical and aeronautical ('cuz we're not mature enough), but when an unbiased external observer makes a comment like that - especially one who's smart enough and trained enough to be a quality engineer - then I have to take it to heart. Though I haven't had a complaint yet, not even from the standards auditors who put our products (and their docs) through the validation paces. Best to address it before the complaint arrives.
Thanks,
- Kevin
stopping flogging, now
The information contained in this electronic mail transmission
may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected
from disclosure. If you have received this communication in
error, please notify us immediately by replying to this
message and deleting it from your computer without copying
or disclosing it.
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
