4 Responses

1. Marie-L. Flacke

   July 27th, 2007 at 11:09 pm

   1

   IMHO these seasoned technical writers -who make the same mistakes- have NOT been trained in technical writing and the company they are working with has not STYLE GUIDE…

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2. Scott

   July 28th, 2007 at 8:26 am

   2

   I have to agree with you on both points. To be honest, though, I don’t have any formal training in technical writing and have worked with companies that didn’t have style guides but even in my early days I didn’t make those mistakes.

   A lot of it depends on the writer, and their dedication to their job. Serious technical writers learn from their mistakes and strive to improve. Those who do the job for a pay cheque and who really don’t care about quality make things more difficult for the rest of us.

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3. Dawn

   August 2nd, 2007 at 2:16 am

   3

   I have read both articles and as an experienced writer of mainly technical writing material (with no formal training), I can honestly say, that until I entered a tecnical writing team, I never received any instruction on these items. They do not come naturally.

   It does take years of practice, but there are some technical things about writing itself that we are simply not born with and that sometimes even a grammar-school education will not provide!

   Training, training, training! Mentor, mentor, mentor!

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4. Scott

   August 2nd, 2007 at 5:40 pm

   4

   Dawn,

   Thank you for your comment. It’s true that training and mentoring can most definitely help a writer improve. I’ve mentored two writers in my career, and one has developed into a fine professional who I wouldn’t mind working with again. The other … well, that person wasn’t really cut out to be a technical communicator.

   That said, I’ve seen quite a few writers with training and with years of experience make the mistakes that are outlined in Tom Johnson’s blog post. With some, as I mentioned in a previous comment, they don’t really care all that much about doing the best job they can. Just good enough seems to be good enough for them. Others just get complacent. It’s hard to kick them out of that complacency.

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