Lesson 7: Editing And Reviews
Dealing with difficult reviewers
Some people are more cooperative than others. It's a fact of life. As a technical writer you need to deal with a lot of people who don't necessarily see helping you as part of their job description (even when it should be). Some people will be very forthcoming when you ask them questions, others will practically need to be tied down before they answer you. Similarly when sending material for review, some people will comply and give you the necessary feedback in a timely manner while others won't.
If a particular developer isn't cooperating with a review request, notify your manager and ask for his or her help. They may suggest you discuss the obstruction with the reviewer's boss or have other suggestions to elicit cooperation. If you can, find an alternate source of information - if a developer isn't cooperating perhaps the person testing those features or a consultant using them will.
Ultimately as long as you tried to get your material reviewed, it's not your fault if there are technical inaccuracies. Unfortunately this doesn't help the customers getting confused by the mistakes so you should make every effort to get the needed feedback.
