RE: non-tech techwr better for end users (was "same boat")

[Christine -dot- Anameier -at- seagate -dot- com]

Kathi DeGuzman wrote: "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."

You'd be surprised how much of that goes on in universities. When I was a
grad student, I did a couple of years as a teaching assistant before moving
on to teach my own classes. In most cases, placement was arbitrary. I was
an 18th century British lit specialist who wound up TA'ing for lecture
courses in linguistics, American short stories, 20th century drama...

And it worked. I'm not saying it's the best way to do things, but I was
able to learn the material fast, keep a step ahead of the students, and
perform competently. Just because I'm not a professor of linguistics
doesn't mean I can't put together an adequate lecture on the international
phonetic alphabet, suitable for a low-level survey course. I sure wouldn't
have tried to lecture to a hall full of linguistics professors, but I knew
enough to teach undergrads something.

Now I learn software and turn right around and teach it to end users.
Perhaps by "knows nothing about" you mean "has no aptitude for"? There are
a lot of us who figure it out as we go along but are good at formulating
what questions newbies might have, and good at explaining things. In fact,
while I hesitate to call ignorance of the subject matter a "bonus," I would
say that it could make a competent writer somewhat more likely to intuit
the issues a new user will encounter. Some of the development types may
well have forgotten the time they didn't know [insert basic concept
everyone learns at some point] and when confronted with that, they may
express contempt for the idiot user who doesn't know that basic concept.
I've seen it happen.

Kathi, you described your greatest strength as "the ability and willingness
to seek out information." I think that's an essential skill for a tech
writer, along with a certain level of empathy for the user. IMO, those
qualities count for much more than already knowing the material. Any facts
you learn will become obsolete at some point, but the ability to learn will
not.

Christine Anameier
(insert standard "I don't speak for my company" disclaimer here)


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