Re: The Writer's Toolkit

[DURL <durl -at- BUFFNET -dot- NET>]

Hi Graham--
        My point reflected my concern that, as we continue to insist that
we can be all things--designer, writer, and software jockey par
excellence--we lend credence to the similar claims of others.
        IMO, "writing" seems to be the skill *least* in demand in the
above set, and the one most people think they can do. People will admit
they don't know Framemaker or that they can't draw...but almost everyone
claims they can write. As they can--but not as well as a person who
studied the craft and continues to do so. (A metaphor I like is that
"Everybody can dance--but not everyone is Fred Astaire.")
        So, unless we emphasize that our writing is our core skill, we
devalue writing as a skill. In that scenario, if writing is just one
skill, and requires so little effort that you can spend most of your time
learning software upgrades and doing DTP/layout/information design, why
pay a writer? Why not recruit employees or contractors in the
perceived-as-more-difficult skills of design, graphics, and software
mastery, who incidentally can write well--or well enough?
        Another poster pointed out the explosion of information and
documentation. Explosion it is--shit all over the place! You can't
even find a novel without significant copywriting/copyediting errors in
almost
anything published by a major house in the 1990s.
        So my point is that, while the graphic and writing professions
*should* work together, in point of fact, most places do what Jane's
employer does--expect one person to be a professional in both of them, and
equally adept. I'm sure graphic designers shudder at the idea that we can
match their education and expertise; I shudder equally at their claim that
they can write as well as a writer.
        I agree with you, Graham:  these are separate
professions. And we claim to
be expert in all of them at the peril of good, clean, readable, usable
writing.
        Mary

Mary Durlak  Erie Documentation Inc.
East Aurora, New York (near Buffalo)
durl -at- buffnet -dot- net

On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, Graham Tillotson wrote:

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> I am confused by Mary Durlak's comment that--if I am reading
> it correctly--graphic designers might as well generate copy
> since they are doing the bulk of production work anyhow.
> Somehow this smacks of the same absolutist reasoning that
> creeps into the list with the FrameMaker/Word debates.
>
> Writing is a profession just as graphic design is a
> profession, and they work together. Jane's point that tech
> writers need to know the "principles of DTP" is a good one,
> because in the modern, fast-paced world of today (as college
> freshmen are wont to write) writers and designers need the
> ability to communicate. If you know principles, you can most
> likely communicate with designers (graphic, Web, etc.) about
> layout, colors, typography, and all the other fascinating
> elements that are so often abused in modern media.
>
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> note:           "Simplify, simplify, simplify."     --H. D. Thoreau
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