[ARC5] R-10 in the receivers.

Wed Sep 24 13:27:08 EDT 2014

One of the most difficult things for a person to do is to write an article, manual, etc., for someone who has very little, if any, actual knowledge of the subject.  It is way too easy to assume that the reader has certain knowledge and the author leaves out pertinent information that is crucial.  When the author really "knows" the subject, he/she often overlooks information that absolutely needs to be included.

For those who can easily write information to educate persons with absolutely no knowledge of the subject, that really does impart the knowledge, I have great respect.

Over the decades, starting when I was a junior in high school, I have written numerous magazine articles, newspaper columns, historical articles (primarily Civil War), and so forth.  I do hold over 1000 copyrights.  But, the only technical manual that I have written was when I was a senior at Georgia Tech and had established, and was managing, the first portable and pager repair facility, owned by Motorola, that was away from the Schamburg, Illinois, plant.  That was a field repair manual on the Motorola Pageboy pager.  The purpose of the manual was to impart quite a number of basically "hints and kinks" which allowed the technician to rapidly diagnose, and then repair, the various circuits in the pager.

Glen, K9STH 

Website:  http://k9sth.net

On Wednesday, September 24, 2014 11:41 AM, Bruce Long <coolbrucelong at yahoo.com> wrote:

The single must useful think I learned in my effort to improve my technical writing was to determine who my audience was and to understand what benefit they expect to receive from reading my work.

________________________________
 From: Glen Zook <gzook at yahoo.com>
To: "mstangelo at comcast.net" <mstangelo at comcast.net>; Bruce Long <coolbrucelong at yahoo.com> 
Cc: "ARC5 at mailman.qth.net" <ARC5 at mailman.qth.net>; 'Mike Morrow' <kk5f at arrl.net> 
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] R-10 in the receivers.

Not long after I went to work at the "new" corporate headquarters of the Collins Radio Company (April 1967), here in Richardson, Texas, all salaried employees were required to attend a week-long course in "effective writing".  This course included a method of determining the education level required to read the printed word.  Things like newspapers and general interest magazines required between a 6th grade and 8th grade education.  Technical and scientific magazines were aimed at a 10th grade education, professional publications were aimed at a sophomore in college, and so forth.

The primary reason for this was the fact that the education level of the Collins Radio Company manuals had been "checked" using the system contained in the course.  Since the vast majority of Collins manuals were aimed at enlisted men in the United States military, the education level required was supposed to be between 8th grade and 10th grade.  Unfortunately, the average manual required an education level several years beyond a PhD!  To correct this situation, a number of new technical writers were employed.  I was led to believe that most of these new technical writers were obtained from Motorola C&E which was the division of Motorola that manufactured two-way radios.  During that time period, the repair manuals for Motorola equipment were well written at an appropriate education level.

Glen, K9STH 

Website:  http://k9sth.net

On Wednesday, September 24, 2014 9:11 AM, "mstangelo at comcast.net" <mstangelo at comcast.net> wrote:

During my college days I worked at a test lab that had a Technical Publications department. The "TechPub" department also made the illustrations for the manuals. One of the challenges was to write a technical manual that can be understood by a user with a high school education.

Their major customer was the military but they also wrote manuals for
 a plastic model manufacturer. I forget which one.

Mike N2MS

----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Long via ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
To: Brian Clarke <brianclarke01 at optusnet.com.au>, ARC5 at mailman.qth.net, 'Mike Morrow' <kk5f at arrl.net>, don davis <dxguy at earthlink.net>
Sent: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:30:19 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: [ARC5] R-10 in the receivers.
<snip>

In general in my opinion good tech writing is both difficult and unrewarding.  For that reason tech documentation seems to be
 generally poor and sometimes just plan wrong.  I've worked hard over my engineering career to develop acceptable technical writing skills with some success but I still find it difficult and something I only do when I have to.

<snip>

I
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