Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?"

["William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>]

Back on track, yes, they are the unsung heroes, but not in the way most 
think.

They are insurance.

When the proverbial brown stuff hits the proverbial rotating air mover, what 
is in those manuals can make or break a company in court. Look up American 
Airlines Flight 191. American Airlines used an engine removal procedure 
different than that documented by McDonnell Douglas, and as such, AA took 
the blame. Had that not existed, McDD would have had the blame. The overall 
design was not a very good one, so that added to the disaster, but deviating 
from the acceptable procedure is what caused the accident.

This is where some companies get in trouble. Instead of allowing tech 
writers to run all the procedures start to finish to ensure the 
documentation actually matches, short cuts are often taken by having others 
review it and (maybe) sign off on it. However, those most familiar with a 
task will frequently skip tasks and not follow word for word a procedure, 
defeating the review process.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janoff, Steven" <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com>
To: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>; "Robert Lauriston" 
<robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>; "TECHWR-L Writing" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2015 7:55 PM
Subject: RE: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document 
generation?"