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Subject:Re: Military Doc. From:"Ahuja, Rasil K., Ms., IMCEN" <AhujaRK -at- HQDA -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL> Date:Fri, 18 Dec 1998 11:00:46 -0500
|How does the Tech. Writing community feel about writing military doc?
|Are military tech. writers a separate sub-species?
I work on-site at the Pentagon on an Army contract. I think mil TWs are
different from the rest simply because we kind of have free reign. *I*
decide the look and feel of my documents. Yes, there are military standards,
but I've yet to be asked to follow them.
As always there are two sides to this coin. One is that I get exposure to
various aspects of technical writing which I otherwise may not have had.
This is great because I am a junior writer. I decide everything from font to
layout to whatever-need-be.
The flip side is that prospective employers may actually hold this against
me because the standards I set may not be quite up to par with theirs. This
really concerns me.
What's tiresome about documentation here is that they're evaluating new
technology as I write about what we have currently. So by the time I'm done
with my project, the documentation will most likely be passe!!!! Most
annoying....
