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Q&A How can we make compiling release notes less chaotic?

First off, technical non-writers make better technical writers, than non-technical writers do. They usually can write in a way mostly understandable to layman and factually correct (as opposed to n...

posted 10y ago by SF.‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:19:20Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/10053
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar SF.‭ · 2019-12-08T03:19:20Z (over 4 years ago)
First off, technical non-writers make better technical writers, than non-technical writers do. They usually can write in a way _mostly_ understandable to layman and factually correct (as opposed to non-technical writers who'll often write something perfectly clear, but completely wrong), they just need to be asked to do so - they won't, if they don't know they should!

Instead of non-technical people assembling the notes, have technical people tasked with assembling them in a relatively reader-friendly manner. Best, if everyone in the team wrote short release notes on everything they did in person, every bug they filed, asked to explain it in relatively non-technical manner (typical to release notes - they know what release notes are). It's 10 minutes of work per month, and you have a good preliminary draft almost complete.

Only then have the non-technical writer edit the draft, making it pretty, correcting errors or smoothing out still too technical language. If something is hard to understand, consult, perform the usual back-and-forth, but the number of these cases should drop to 2-3 per iteration from dozens. Simply, instead of asking the non-technical writers to reach across the chasm to the professionals, have them meet halfway - essentially, everyone becomes the writer, but you're getting one good editor.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-01-16T23:28:50Z (over 10 years ago)
Original score: 1