Re: The Writer's Kit

Subject: Re: The Writer's Kit
From: Jason Willebeek-LeMair <jlemair -at- ITEXCHSRV2 -dot- PHX -dot- MCD -dot- MOT -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 13:34:24 -0700

Andrew,

Actually, I think Jim clarified his question to mean what should the
contractor physically have or own, not just have knowledge of.

For example, would it be reasonable to suggest that TWs not only have
knowledge of but also own their own copies of:

FrameMaker
PageMaker
Word (in various incarnations)
Wordperfect
WordPro
Quark

Plus, don't forget the graphics

Corel
Designer
Visio
ABC FlowCharter
PhotoShop
etc.

And any other miscellaneous programs

Microsoft Project
Acrobat Distiller
DynaWeb
etc.

That would be quite a sizable investment, which could possibly be worth
it if you did not have to keep pouring money into it to keep it current.
And it probably would not be worth the money if you only had to use
PageMaker once every several years.

So, I guess the question is, what would be reasonable to expect a
contract writer to own? (Aside from the knowledge of how to use these
programs).

Jason

P.S. Andrew -- where is my Christmas present?!?
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Jason T. Willebeek-LeMair
Technical Writer/Editor
Product Information and
Publication Services
Motorola Computer Group
Ph. (602) 438-3135
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz



> ----------
> From: Andrew Plato
> Reply To: Andrew Plato
> Sent: Monday, January 5, 1998 12:54 PM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Re: The Writer's Kit
>
> Would you hire a plumber who only used a snake -- even to fix leaky
> sinks?
> Would you hire an electrician who insisted on using only 220 volt
> wiring
> (even for puny 12 volt things).
> Would you hire a auto mechanic who only will work with a metric socket
> set
> (and you have an American car)?
>
> No, so why would you want tech writers that don't have or know all the
> tools? I mean the big stuff like Word, PageMaker, and FrameMaker.
> Nobody
> cares if you don't know EsotericMaker version 9.3-B for UNIX or
> something
> equally obscure. But the big stuff - you should know it, use it, and
> deal
> with it.
>
> Professionals are not influenced by tool and technology holy wars.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Andrew Plato
> Owner / Principal Consultant
> Anitian Technology Services
> www.anitian.com
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: JIMCHEVAL <JIMCHEVAL -at- aol -dot- com>
> Newsgroups: bit.listserv.techwr-l
> Date: Sunday, January 04, 1998 1:06 PM
> Subject: The Writer's Kit
>
>
> >Recently I got some gentle jibing from a client who insisted that I
> "should"
> >have Pagemaker since I was a technical writer. My own opinion was
> that
> >Pagemaker was a desktop publishing tool and not a writing tool per
> se, and
> it
> >certainly wasn't reasonable to just expect that I would have it (I
> had in
> fact
> >explicitly said I didn't during our first meeting.) Nor that writing
> services
> >would necessarily include printer-ready layout.
> >
> >My question: what do members of this list consider basic components
> of a
> >freelance TW's kit - i.e., what's a 'must', what's a 'should' and
> what's a
> >'nice to have'? I'm thinking both hardware and software here. (I've
> checked
> >the archive and we've knocked around lots of closely related ideas,
> but
> not,
> >so far as I can find, this one in particular.)
> >
> >To put it another way, what should a client expect a freelancer will
> >reasonably have available as a matter of course?
> >
> >Also, how much has desktop publishing implicitly become part of our
> job
> >description? Word has aspects of DTP, but my Word files have been
> sent
> >elsewhere for pre-press work. Whereas this most recent client expects
> it
> all
> >as part of TW work.
> >
> >Comments?
> >
> >Jim Chevallier
> >Los Angeles
> >=========================================================
> >Visit Chez Jim: Jim Chevallier's Home Page -
> http://www.gis.net/~jimcheval
> >=========================================================
> >
> ~~~
> >Send commands to listserv -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu (e.g., SIGNOFF
> TECHWR-L)
> >Search archives at:
> http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html,
> >
> >
>
> ~~
> Send commands to listserv -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu (e.g., SIGNOFF
> TECHWR-L)
> Search archives at:
> http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html,
>
>




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