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"I need your help with some documentation" (Xtranormal Movies)

by Tom Johnson on Nov 4, 2010
categories: technical-writing

Last week my wife, Shannon, showed me a couple hilarious Xtranormal videos. The first is So, you want to be a lawyer? And then, So, you want to get a PhD in the humanities?

After watching these two, I couldn't help but think of a scenario for technical writers. The following is a conversation I'm calling, "I need your help with some documentation." The project manager represents a compilation of all the crazy things project managers have said to me over the years.

After I made the preceding video, I feared project managers would call me out for being unfair, so I made a second video that tries to reverse the portrayal and show technical writers in a less-than-favorable light.

About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

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