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Thanks to Chris, Chuck and Nancy for their helpful comments.
For Deborah, and others who may be interested, I was referred to
the following:
"Managing Your Documentation Projects" Jo Ann T. Hackos
(Anyone know the publisher and price?)
"The Documentation Development Methology"
Sandra Pakin & Associates, Inc.
Publications Division
6007 N. Sheridan Road
Chicago, Il 60660
In addition, I have ordered a few articles I saw listed in the STC
Journal. When I get all the materials, I will let those who are
interested know which ones were most helpful.
I ignored and immediately deleted sarcastic comments and comments
from technical writers who are worried about protecting their
jobs, just as I treat all the garbage that is interspersed
with the good stuff on this list.
I welcome the desire of engineers to improve the document
production process and the material they feed to me.
Marsha
cmawta -at- taux01 -dot- nsc -dot- com
----- Begin Included Message -----
Wed Jul 13 09:33:40 1994
I have been asked to prepare an internal technical writing guide
for SMEs (subject matter experts) in our company that will
help them provide raw material for us, the technical writers.
It should include:
1. How to budget time and resources for documentation of the
projects in which they are involved.
2. How to determine what each documentation element (chapter, section)
should contain in different documents (data sheets, reference
manuals, user guides).
3. How to avoid the kind of problems that arise when documentation
is produced by a number of different individuals (e.g., inconsistency
in the way names are spelled, duplication of certain explanations).
4. A checklist so that each writer of the raw material can polish the
raw material before submitting it (e.g., check for overly long and
complex sentences, topic sentences for each paragraph, unexplained
new acronyms)
Can anyone suggest any materials that will help me prepare such a
guide.
