Dictionary

documentarian en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˌdɑ.kjʊ.mənˈtɛɹi.ən/ (General-American)
• /ˌdɒk.jʊ.mənˈtɛəɹi.ən/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /-.mɛnˈ-/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /-.mɛnˈ-/ (General-American)
• (UK) audio
• /-.kjə.-/ (General-American)

Etymology

From documentary + -an. From document + -arian.

Meanings

1. A person whose profession is to create documentary films.
   • As film tourism becomes a rising field of interest, this portion of documentary history is in danger of repetition unless documentarians utilize the nobler ideas of documentary in order to cultivate a deeper understanding between people, filmmaker, and audience. 2015, Merritt Mecham, The Documentarian as tourist: travel and representation in documentary, Brigham Young University:
2. A person who writes software documentation.
   • Have you considered hiring a technical writer or documentarian to assist in the production of user manuals? 1981 October 12, Larry E. Long, “What makes a DP author different?”, in Computerworld, page 41:
   • After you have gone through all these steps, you are ready to tackle your company's documentation problems. You have also become an experienced systems documentarian... 1976 September 20, Joseph T. Rigo, “Personal initiative only way to learn documentation?”, in Computerworld, page 19:
3. A person who cares about communication and documentation.
   • ...the developer with an aptitude for or an interest in writing assumes the task of documentarian. 2016, Jennifer deWinter, Ryan M. Moeller, Computer Games and Technical Communication: Critical Methods and Applications at the Intersection, Routledge, page 24:
   • Expanding the meaning of documentarian to include folks of any job title is important. Historically, people writing documentation might be called either a tech writer or a programmer, but there wasn’t a name for someone who cares about communication and documentation. We hope to change this. 2013, Troy Howard, Eric Redmond, Eric Holscher Documentarians, Write the Docs
   • I recently co-organised the Build your Docs career conference together with the Write the Docs (WTD) community. This was the fourth collaboration between the organisations and focused on the technical writing profession ... The talks provided lots of practical advice on how we can, as documentarians, learn in such a way as to maximise our potential for development in the future. 2018, Jonathan Glassman, Build your Docs career event: our recap, UK Government Digital Service
4. (attributive, sometimes) Somebody who advocates the documentary hypothesis.

Forms

Relateds

documenter

Translations (10)

de Dokumentarist (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · es documentalista (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · fi dokumentaristi (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · pt documentarista (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · de Dokumentarfilmer (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · de Dokumentarfilmerin (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · pl dokumentalista (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · sv dokumentärfilmare (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · ca documentalista (person whose profession is to create documentary films) · de Dokumentaristin (person whose profession is to create documentary films)