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Subject:RE: "Two-track" documentation From:Win Day <winday -at- home -dot- com> To:"Brady, Joy" <JBrady -at- alldata -dot- net> Date:Mon, 13 Dec 1999 09:57:46 -0500
At 09:20 AM 12/13/99 -0500, Brady, Joy wrote:
>> Andrew Plato wrote:
>>
> "Sorry, but I like to write geeky manuals and I spend 98% of my
>writing energy
>> making sure what I write is technically accurate.
>>
>> If you think accuracy is not important in tech writing - please don't ever
>> take
>> a job in the airline, food processing, nuclear weapons, or ... well, just
>> don't
>> take a job. I really do not want to be at the mercy of documentation that
>> is
>> well targeted to the right audience, but WRONG!"
>>
>>
> For the life of me, I cannot understand how audience consideration
>and technical accuracy are mutually exclusive. Have you personally found
>this to be the case, Andrew?
>
And to take this one logical step forward, I would submit that a document
isn't technically accurate unless the audience finds it so. The audience
must be the judge, not the writer.
If the audience can't use it, it's not accurate enough for their purposes.
