Re: note taking

Subject: Re: note taking
From: "Thiessen, Christopher(Chris) E" <CHRISTOPHER -dot- E -dot- THIESSEN -at- CDEV -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 11:20:06 -0500

Greetings, Michael!

To quote the robot from Lost in Space: "Danger, warning, Will Robinson,
aliens approaching!!"

You are getting dangerously close to performing a secretarial function
(which is not a bad thing to do in the appropriate circumstances, since I
was once a secretary myself), which is a bit off why you need to be taking
notes. When I'm in a meeting, I take notes to clarify issues, not to provide
for others a verbatim record for the perusal of others. Obviously you
already see the downside: it takes an inordinate amount of time to
transcribe all this stuff, time which you could better using writing.
Perhaps the project managers have access to a secretarial-sort who knows
Gregg shorthand (a system specifically designed to accommodate the
note-taking/transcription four hour turnaround process). I strongly urge you
to get out of this loop as quickly as possible.

As for me, when asked to take notes at a meeting, I smile blithely and say
"well, I'll be glad to share my notes with everyone, but they won't be any
sort of record of this meeting. Perhaps we can get Betty-Lou-Belinda-Bob,
who knows Gregg shorthand, to attend if you need that kind of stuff." My
handwriting is very bad (at least for these purposes), but I diligently
xerograph the results and pass them around. Generally Betty-Lou-Belinda-Bob
is invited to the next meeting.

Chris Thiessen
Manager of Documentation & Training Services
christopher -dot- e -dot- thiessen -at- cdev -dot- com
----------
From: Michael Collier
To: "Technical Writers List; for a
Subject: note taking
Date: Tuesday, July 23, 1996 4:13PM

The project managers have found it to be a good thing that tech writers
sit in on software analysis and design sessions--and take notes. While I
did graduate from high school and college, and did take notes much of the
time (when I wasn't sleeping), I am interested in hearing others'
insights into the note taking process.

I started by audio taping and transcribing, and then video taping, in
order to accurately capture the white board stuff. The problem, of
course, with transcribing, is that it can take two days to produce an 8
page document (text and graphics) out of a session that lasted two hours
or so. (I'm talking about an almost verbatim transcript here.) I'll
start bringing a laptop into the sessions to see if I can cut down on
some of the transcribing time by typing and listening at the same time.

The PMs would love to have the notes from, say, a morning session,
available in the afternoon. I have expressed my doubts about the
possibility of this, using the methods described above. For those of you
who take session notes, what expectations are you confronted with re:
turnaround time, and what methods do you employ (laptops, dictaphones,
electronic whiteboards, video/audio transcription)? Does anyone have a
support staff whose function it is to do this? On one hand, I see the
value to me and the design team of being in the sessions and taking
notes, but on the other hand the transcription process seems like such a
waste of time.

Michael Collier
michacol -at- upgrade -dot- com

TECHWR-L List Information
To send a message about technical communication to 2500+ list readers,
E-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send administrative commands
ALL other questions or problems concerning the list
should go to the listowner, Eric Ray, at ejray -at- ionet -dot- net -dot-

TECHWR-L List Information
To send a message about technical communication to 2500+ list readers,
E-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send administrative commands
ALL other questions or problems concerning the list
should go to the listowner, Eric Ray, at ejray -at- ionet -dot- net -dot-



Previous by Author: Re: Re : Revision Dates (are they necessary ???)
Next by Author: Trade Shows and Tech Writers
Previous by Thread: Re: note taking
Next by Thread: Re: note taking


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads