Maybe we should change it to "This page intentionally left almost completely blank," to be more technically accurate :) Regards, Shmuel Wolfson 052-763-7133
Combs, Richard wrote: Daniel Emory wrote: Certainly I don't advocate the use of MIL specs for preparing commercial manuals. I do know, however, that most tech writers who produce manuals for commercial products remain blissfully unaware of the problems caused by their outputs. A valid point. Although some of us, at least, aren't _blissful_ about it. Resigned, maybe. Sometimes whining and grumbling. <snip> All I was trying to say is that tech writers in the non-military world should take advantage of remedial measures taken by the military to minimize foul-ups. True, when they're applicable. But don't forget the two most important concepts in the technical communications field: (1) It depends. (2) Know your audience. When your audience includes HS grads and GEDs, and they may be under stress, in a hurry, or otherwise highly distracted, and the consequences of a communication failure may be grave -- well, that's a bit different, I suspect, from telling UNIX system administrators how to upgrade the boot server software for their teleconferencing bridges. Software engineers, in particular, are often very literal-minded and Spockian. I've actually had an engineer point to an "Intentionally Blank" page (in another company's manual) and say, "A page is only blank if there's nothing on it." :-) Richard ------ Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 ------ rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 ------ _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [1]sbw at actcom.com. Send list messages to [2]framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to [3]framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit [4]http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/sbw%40actcom.co m Send administrative questions to [5]lisa at frameusers.com. Visit [6]http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. References 1. mailto:sbw at actcom.com 2. mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com 3. mailto:framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com 4. http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/sbw%40actcom.com 5. mailto:lisa at frameusers.com 6. http://www.frameusers.com/
