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>Our "reader" is a "person." We, in general, do not know our reader
personally.
>We do not know the "life" the reader brings to our writing/words. Is the
reader
>a person who lives in poverty and despair, trying to get though the first
job
>they have held in years? Is the reader a young person who was abused as a
child?
>Is the reader the first rocket scientist ever to come from a third-world
>country? Is the reader your offspring? Is the reader a parent with children
in
>trouble? Is the reader in a hurry to learn a new technique because of an
>impending deadline? Is the reader hurrying to get a job done and doesn't
give a
>hoot about he/she womyn/man usage? Is the reader...?
>Will we, as writers, be creative, responsible, brave, and courageous enough
>stand for kindness and caring for our reader? For other people's feelings
and
>thoughts? Will we see that our actions-our intentions-define us? Are we, by
>definition of technical writer, uncaring towards our reader simply because
our
>writing is "supposed" to be technical? Our writing is technical; our
readers are
>still people.
Ah, I see. We shoudn't be niggardly (oops, is that a bad word) in our
affection for our readers, is that it?
Ya know, when I read my **** manual, I do feel like the writers care even
though I can't find the information I'm looking for. It's just got that
friendly, caring tone.
C'mon.
Let's stop the pretentious navel gazing. We write words to help people
quickly understand processes and procedures and apply that understanding to
solve an immediate need or complete a task. That's it!
All this talk reminds me of the self-absorbtion of architects in the 50's
and early 60's who believed in social engineering through architecture. If
we change the person's surrounding's, they thought, surely the person will
change also. We will look back on this thread as we do on those trends in
utter amazement that we even considered these notions. It's like NATO
showering Serbia with dictionaries replete with ethnic-neutral names for
Albanians. People only change because they have a deep need to change. It
comes from within and never the other way around.
