[jseliger]

These courses are typical tech-writer overkill, missing the forest for the trees, then getting lost in the weeds (if I may mix a few metaphors). There is too much introduction and setup, then it jumps into the nitty-gritty, but never gives the big picture.

The real challenge is that no one agrees what great writing really is or how to teach it. The problems are conceptual and related to the nature of writing, thinking, and communicating—all fields that are unsolved. I've taught writing in universities and written about the challenges of writing (and related grading challenges) before. https://jakeseliger.com/2014/12/20/subjectivity-in-writing-a...

"The big picture" is often the world itself.

[205guy]

I do agree that writing is a moving target. Different people learn in different ways, some people learn best from the style and content in the original submission. I’ve often thought that all docs should have a mirror video tutorial to give the same info for visual learners.

I disagree that the big picture is so broad. Your article about subjectivity is accurate, but it applies to the field of creative writing. For technical writing and to some extent journalism, they are almost defined by by their purpose in communicating a specific thing. That “thing” is the big picture.

[sumedh]

> The real challenge is that no one agrees what great writing really is or how to teach it.

If the doc allows an average user to quickly setup the service and how to use it with two or three scenarios without getting confused is a good metric that the doc is good.