Page 9 - Troubleshooting Analog Circuits

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complex schematics. Would the readers like it? My guess was they would; the
manuscript was filled with pithy and trenchant observations.
The style was different too. In the past, rigid constraints forced articles into a ho-
mogenized mold-albeit one that, despite the magazine’s highly technical content,
was almost always eminently clear and readable. Now we’re a bit more relaxed. We
still rewrite extensively for clarity, but we try to let a writer’s style and personality
show through. I think part of the reason for our change in attitude was the success of
Bob’s series.
Bob’s style not only displays his sense of humor, it showcases his idiosyncratic
and sometimes quirky nature. Most of all, however, his perfectionism and consum-
mate craftsmanship are clearly evident. I pointed out that if we tried to force what
Bob had given us into a more traditional mold, it would lose a significant part of its
value. Among the reasons that Bob is so successful are who he is and how he ap-
proaches problems. There was no better way than through his style to convey the
essence of Bob’s personality to the readers.
One of EDN’s “rules” is that we don’t use rhetorical questions; readers may an-
swer them in unexpected ways-ways that can play havoc with the point the writer is
trying to make. The staff jokes that we “ration” rhetorical questions. According to the
legend, each issue, our managing editor, Joan Morrow Lynch, grants one editor who
requests it the right to ask a rhetorical question. She does so on a first-come, first-
served basis, but can only deny the privilege to anyone whose recent work has posed
too many of the queries. After reading what eventually became the first installment of
“Troubleshooting Analog Circuits,” I observed that this one article would more than
use up EDN’s en& annual allotment of rhetorical questions. “But, why not risk it?”
I asked; Bob begins solving problems by asking questions.
Something about the series that, to my knowledge, is unique is that it approaches
the subject of troubleshooting from a design engineer’s perspective. EDN readers are
designers. Pease is an accomplished designer. Yet he is one who not only doesn’t see
troubleshooting as beneath his exalted station, he views the activity as part and parcel
of his job. Indeed, he revels in it, and his writing effectively communicates his pas-
sion for exorcising the hobgoblins that bedevil electronic circuits.
That fact was not wasted on the readers. Their reaction was overwhelmingly posi-
tive. Never in the magazine’s history (almost 35 years) has something that EDN
published evoked such an enthusiastic outpouring. Every few weeks, a new deck of
reader-service cards circulates around our offices. There are the cards on which
readers have written comments-in addition to making requests for more informa-
tion on products advertised and mentioned in the magazine. The decks for the issues
that contained the series installments invariably contained scores of hand-written
notes asserting that Bob’s articles were marvelous; the best that EDN had ever
printed. In fact, EDN’s readers voted all 12 articles the best-read contributed manu-
scripts in their respective issues. Once the series ended, we started getting cards that
asked for the articles in book foxm. First, the book requests were a trickle, but they
rapidly swelled to a torrent. So, for all of you who asked for it and for those who
never saw the series in EDN but who have decried the lack of a compendium on
troubleshooting from a designer’s perspective, here it is.
Lest it appear that I was the sole EDN staff member who edited Bob’s work, let me
make it clear that I wasn’t even the one who did the most editing. In addition to my-
self, the technical editors were Senior Editor Charles H. Small, and Anne Watson
Swager, now EDN’s East-Coast regional Editor in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. The
nontechnical editing of every article in the series was done by Associate Editor
Julie Anne Schofield. EDN’s Art Department, directed by Ken Racicot, handled the