Re: On Summer Help

["Theresa Jones" <tjones95 -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Barry Kieffer wrote:
I would treat a part-time, volunteer, student helper (i.e. high school
student) for the summer, as a technical writing intern - and no less.
<snip>
Show them how to put together a simple doc plan. Give them some editing. 
Have them work a few days on updating (or starting) a corporate style guide. 
Give them a small maintenance project. Have them do some original writing. 
Allow them to sit in on engineering or core team meetings so they get a feel 
for the job. <snip>

I write:
Wow!  This is more than I was allowed to do at my first tech writing job 
after I had earned a college degree and proven myself with 3 internships 
after college.  You want to let a high school student do all of this?  I'm 
still young enough to remember what I was like in high school and I KNOW I 
did not have the responsibility or the ability to do anything along the 
lines of what Barry is explaining here- and I graduated in the top 3% of my 
class.  Allowing a student to write original content assumes that this 
student is going to be able to address a professional audience- when they 
have never been in a professional environment. How can they start a 
corporate style guide when they have never had to create a project that was 
not a double-spaced essay for their 10th grade english class?
I agree that you can try to give your summer helper more work than just 
xeroxing and filing, but remember what you are working with. You can't 
expect someone to produce quality work when they have no clue what it is 
like to even be in a work environment.

Theresa
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com