"Know thy audience"; was: RE: What is "well Written"?

[Gene Kim-Eng]

Some of my worst experiences as a manager have been the result of
technical writers trying to be "creative" instead of being consistent
and just following the specs and style guides.  Generally, whenever
my work requires creativity it's usually to try to fix something that
someone did wrong.  As a writer, I would describe myself and those 
who do the best work for me as a bunch of very efficient people who
are happy to be hacks.

Gene Kim-Eng



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ned Bedinger" <doc at edwordsmith.com>
> Many job descriptions I've seen have listed some sort of information 
> synthesis as a job duty, and while I find that requirement to be 
> hopelessly vague (do they mean like "Make something up"?), I do count it 
> as a clue pointing to conceptual creative work as an element of our job 
> description.