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>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mike Stockman [mailto:stockman -at- jagunet -dot- com]
>> Am I the only one who sees value in knowing more than you need to tell
>> your audience...?
Don't worry Mike, you are not alone. There is no point in trying to convince
me that a person would be able to teach someone about something that the
person knows nothing about. In addition, you need to be able to write not
only to one type of an audience or another (novice vs. expert), but also to
both together and those in the middle. A good tech writer knows how to
layout the information so that any kind of user will be able to use the
manual. Not to mention knowing what information needs to be there in the
first place.
Now, I do not think that all tech writers need to have come from the
development side of the industry. But at the very least they should have
taken a couple of courses, done some work with, or gone to seminars about
computers. Tech writers don't need to be super techies, they need to be
intelligent, hard-working, quick-grasping, individuals with a desire to
learn new technologies and write about it.
Although I have a system's development background, I still have to be able
to learn the system that the company I am working for is developing. My
background helps me to learn faster. But that doesn't mean that if I had a
different formal education, but was still intelligent, hard-working, and
quick-grasping, that I wouldn't learn the same material.
I don't pretend to know all the technical stuff that is required by a
company when I go on an interview. I either wait for the question, or
introduce the topic myself, regarding my strengths and weaknesses. I think
my biggest weakness is that I don't know alot of state-of-the-art
technology. But counter it with my greatest strength, the ability and
willingness to seek out information and learn about what I don't know. I
think they balance one another.
Anyway, I am sure (even without looking) that the discussion about what type
of background one needs to be a good tech writer has been thrown around
before. Probably in the archives at this very moment. I just felt like
putting in my $.02
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