1. Home
  2. Electronics Design
  3. italicization for latin /et al/ in technical writing
  4. Page 2

italicization for latin /et al/ in technical writing

[...]

[...]

I am not doing it *for* them, I am doing it as *one of* the them, so hounding potential cotributors is part of my job. Most of our contributors are irregular, only writing when they have saomething to say.

[...] .

We have been bitten a couple of times. Once someone volunteered to catalogue a lot of stuff. After months of hearing nothing we tried to contact her and found she wasn't answering e-mails or the telephone.

Another one took over the post of membership secretary, converted the records to a database system that she was incapable of handling and incapable of exporting to someone who could sort it out. It took us a year to find out who some of our more recent members were.

I think the UK requirements are for a Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer. There is an awkward situation regarding Trustees, as the status of these may depend on what is in the individual constitutions.

Our Committee has been in existance for many years and the membera all know each other well and have a lot of background knowledge. This is daunting for a newcomer who helpfuly suggests something, only to meet a chorus of voices saying "We tried that in 1989 and it didn't work".

Reply to
Liz Tuddenham
Loading thread data ...
[...]

I was already a member; when the previous Editor wanted to retire, I stepped into the post.

She thought she knew it all and bluffed her way past the chairman with a load of technical claptrap that she had heard her boyfriend using. He probably did know what he was doing, but she was totally out of her depth and tried to find a way of blaming us for her failure.

We have also had 'experts' try to persuade the Chairman to let them take over the website - how much better they could make it for only a moderate fee! When I read them the rules: no Javascript, no cookies, they usually backed down. They all turned out to be 'painting-by-numbers' merchants who just filled in templates.

I have tried unsuccessfully to take newcomers under my wing and train them up, but they all want spectacular results instantly for no effort and aren't willing to invest time learning the HTML and PHP they need to run the website. Similarly we have had workparty members and even a manager who thought they just needed to buy expensive machinery to do the job - some hadn't even learned to tie a knot properly, had no idea of basic engineering and hydraulic principles and were a disaster at manpower management.

[...]

If the reasons it didn't work are still in place, it won't work again - but if things have changed, it might. We were trying to be helpful but the collected long memories of the Committee were a bit daunting for a newcomer still feeling their way.

Reply to
Liz Tuddenham
[...]

In our case it was often because the new volunteers didn't realise that a landowner was dead against us (or had to be handled with kid gloves) - or weren't aware of hidden historical structures that had to be preserved. On a couple of occasions it was because they were so ignorant of the basics that they thought water would oblige them by running uphill (yes, seriously ! ).

We had one volunteer dig a hole in the canal bed to let a stream come up through from a culvert below. He was the landowner and we could not persuade him it wouldn't work; we just had to dam the canal further back so we didn't lose all the water and then let him go ahead and do it. That stretch of canal is still dry - but he insists that it would now be in water if only we hadn't dammed it.

Some things can be altered over time, but some can't.

Reply to
Liz Tuddenham

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.