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"Holder, Luanne" wrote:
>
> It seems that a lot of tech writers came to the profession after having a
> career as a teacher. What characteristics of tech writing made that
> profession more appealing than teaching?
For me, a number of factors came together at the same time:
- Hiring is very tight in most universities. I could get steady
contract work from semester to semester, but a tenured position
seemed increasingly unlikely. Not that I especially cared about the
security, but I was doing the same work for about 40% of the pay.
The usual excuse was that tenured faculty were paid for research,
but I was also expected to do research to prove my credentials.
- Teaching was given relatively low status. At universities,
research is more important. At community colleges, the emphasis is
on job training. Nothing's wrong with either one, but each was
championed to the exclusion of any other motive.
- By the time I left, my ex-thesis supervisor and I had taken to
calling ourselves the token humanists; we were about the only ones
who believed in learning for its own sake and in literature as an
end in itself. Since those ideals were dead, I had to question what
the point of teaching was.
- The workload was increasing, and the pay wasn't.
- Increased class sizes meant less time to spend with each student.
Since half of my teaching load was usually composition, lack of
individual time meant that I couldn't teach to the standard I had
set myself.
At any rate, the transition was very smooth. Many of the skills were
directly transferrable:
-course planning >> project management
-marking >>editing
-lesson plans >>outlining
-teaching >>writing procedurals and giving background information
In general, I've found that other teachers make very reliable tech
writers. Usually, they have relevant experience, and they learn
quickly. When I can, I hire them.
--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"When Laertes heard his Dad has been stabbed in the arras,
He came racing back to Elsinore tout suite, hotfoot from Paris,
And Ophelia, with her Dad killed by the man she wished to marry,
After saying it with flowers, committed hari-kari."
- Adam McNaughton, "Our Hamlet" ("The Three Minute Hamlet")
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