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In my early days as a tech writer, I worked with a guy named George who had done that on a manual for a missile system. Halfway through a very thick manual on maintenance for the missile, he wrote:
"Hi. My name is George, I'm the guy who wrote this. Thank you for reading this far. My work number is XXXXXXX, call me and I'll buy you a beer."
Seven years later, he got his first phone call.
He lived up to his promise.
--Rick Lippincott
American Science & Engineering
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+rlippincott=as-e -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+rlippincott=as-e -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of William Sherman
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 11:55 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com; Peter Neilson
Subject: Re: [External] Re: SharePoint question
I always think back to a story a guy I worked with told about working on McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom manuals.
Coworker asked him to review a column in a tech order.
"blah, blah, blah
What the h__, no one reads this ___ anyway." without the blanks, of course.
The document had the potential to be 5 to 10 years old, written in a time when writers wrote with pencils, someone typed the pencil copy, a typing pool typed it on data entry, a data entry copy editor reviewed what they entered against the original copy, and then it went to QA for their review.
Eventually it went to the USAF for review, and finally into the field.
Obviously, the original writer was correct with his description.
> Once upon a time, in a twisty little company on a planet far, far away, I
> considered adding technically incorrect material so that I could find out
> if anyone actually read the draft copy. (In software testing it's called
> "bebugging.") Never did it. There were always enough things wrong even in
> the final drafts.
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