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| guy wrote:
|
| > What COULD STC have done (or still do) to "further the professional
| > technical writer"?
| >
| > Is certification something STC should pursue?
| >
| >
| Dick responded:
|
| Okay, here's a positive suggestion, maybe for STC, maybe for the
| TECHWR-L community independent of STC.
|
| Many of you are probably familiar with the _Project
| Management Book of
| Knowledge_ ("PMBOK") published by the Project Management
| Institute. It
| fairly outlines a consensus view of what project managers
| need to know,
| the tools they need to be familiar with, the disciplines they need
| experience in.
|
| Could we devise a corresponding TWBOK? Yes, I know there are
| many kinds
| of tech writing jobs, just as there are many kinds of project
| management
| jobs. But we have often foamed at our mouths about What A Tech Writer
| Needs To Know; and some of these discussions have actually produced
| pretty decent, fairly comprehensive topic lists.
|
| I am not envisioning a compendium of detailed tips and tricks
| for using
| FrameMaker and SnagIt. Instead, I think it should be possible
| to follow
| the PMBOK model and talk about high-level skills that, taken
| together,
| would qualify someone as an expert tech writer and subsets of which
| would nonetheless be useful job skills at a lower level.
|
| First let's define what tech writers ought to know; then let's think
| about certifying people as knowing the material at one or more levels.
|
| Sound like an idea worth bandying about?
|
| Dick
|
I like the idea. It certainly beats some of the recent threads.
John Gilger
Senior Technical Writer
Acres Gaming, Inc.
Las Vegas, NV
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