Re: TW on the development team (long)

Subject: Re: TW on the development team (long)
From: "Dennis Hays/The Burden Lake Group, Ltd." <dlhays -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 14:06:17 -0800

At 05:19 PM 12/27/1995 -0800, Sue Gallagher wrote:
>The current trend in the software industry is to make the
>technical writer an integral part of the development team.
>At first glance, this seems like a golden opportunity to...

I can understand a bad experience... I've had my share. At the present I am
the lead writer, albeit the only writer on a two-year project for the
Department of Energy. It's difficult to be considered part of the team (nice
use of language--part of the team--but designers/coders were readily
accepted and I was, but later on) but have to fight for the most mundane of
minutinae. I had to fight for the design but lost on some compound words
such as offsite dose, barcode numbers, database, and so on. The rationale
from the technical project leader is "These words are common place within
the industry and accepted. Let's not change things at this late date."

So for my two cents, I've always had to fight for every nanometer and I've
become used to the process. Any writer worth a syntax will want the docs
letter perfect, but then there is the customer. At the end of the day, I'm
only a hired gun. As long as they pay for my services, they get the best I
can offer, but when they mandate, such as the DoE,
thenalltheirwordscanbecompound, if they want.


======> Dennis Hays
======> The Burden Lake Group, Ltd.
======> Voice: 518/477-6388
======> Fax: 518/477-5006
======> E-Mail: dlhays -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com


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