🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ELIZ.93Jan20215452@august.ai.mit.edu>, eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) writes:
|>

[stuff deleted

|> For technical (descriptive) and letter-writing, which are far more
|> focused and task-driven than fiction writing, it is probably easier to
|> get it right in the first draft.  Still, the quality of much of the
|> writing in handbooks and on business correspondence is so bad that
|> clearly there are very few who can get it right on the first, or even
|> the second, pass.
|>

Indeed, this is true; unfortunately, this is hardly possible. Anyone who
writes technical material in one draft produces very bad technical
material. I usually work with three drafts. In the first, I try to get
everything in, don't worry too much about the words, and understand the
overall structure is open for negotiation. In the second, I try to get
all of the factual errors corrected, add any omissions, fix the
structure, and start to polish. In the third, I eliminate any remaining
factual errors (with any luck), and I lay the final concise, clear,
consistent wording into place. Then the editors get it and straighten it 
out 8-).

|>
|> Elizabeth Willey
|>
|> [And for my own practice, I write and rewrite until I come as close to
|> BEST as I can.  I'd hate to put my name on something I wasn't proud of
|> having written.]

Me too. Sometimes I have to settle to meet the deadline, though. Sigh.
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|Len Olszewski, Technical Writer |"Thou gettest no bread with one     |
|saslpo@unx.sas.com|Cary, NC, USA| meatball." - Robert Sheckley       |
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| Opinions this ludicrous are mine. Reasonable opinions will cost you.|
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