RE: Tech writing course in vo-tech curriculum

["Sarah Bane" <Sarah -dot- Bane -at- spectrumretail -dot- com>]

I hear you. It strikes me as particularly annoying, having gone to
graduate school with dozens of poets, that so many people with MFAs
claim they could do my job (either of them, actually).

BUT a writing course in a vo-tech curriculum is not intended to equip
students to seek careers as technical writers. It is to help them
complete writing tasks that their jobs will entail. Indeed, most of them
will tell the instructor that they are NOT writers. At least that's what
my students (in a similar course for technical majors) tell me.

<||>Does it strike anyone else as annoying that when times get 
<||>hard, half the
<||>laid-off world seems to get all Louisa May Alcott and 
<||>decides they can "be a
<||>writer"? "I know, I'll be a tech writer!" they say.  An 
<||>actual aptitude for
<||>either writing or technology doesn't seem to be on the list 
<||>of must-haves,
<||>for some reason.
<||>

Sarah Bane 
Day job: Documentation Specialist, SpectrumRetail Corporation 
--Home of ProphetLine retail management systems-- 
sarah -dot- bane -at- spectrumretail -dot- com 
Night job: Associate Instructor, University of Arkansas - Fort Smith
sbane -at- pipeline -dot- westark -dot- edu 

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