Re: What does it mean to be technical?

["Michael West" <mbwest -at- removebigpond -dot- net -dot- au>]

"Andrew Plato"   wrote:

> People don't learn technical concepts very quickly, except those that
already
> have a strong technical skills.  Thus, if the material is technical in
nature,
> technical skills are a must. You can't expect people to "come up to speed
> quickly" if they don't already have a strong base of "hard skills."

I can and do expect experienced technical writers to
learn new technical subjects quickly. And they ususally do.

I suspect that your idea of what "technical" refers to
differs from mine. For example, if I need to produce
training materials for mail sorter operators, I do not
need to hire a tech writer who is a mail sorter operater.
I *do* need to hire a tech writer who is smart and who
is quick to learn new skills and absorb new information.


> Anybody can learn a tool or how to format graphics. These are easily
trainable
> "soft" skills. But teaching somebody how to critically analyze a complex
system
> drawing upon a solid base of scientific and technical knowledge cannot be
> picked up quickly.

I can't tell whether your point is about
what "anybody can do" or whether it is
about what can be learned "quickly" because
between the first sentence of your paragraph
and the last sentence, you change the subject.
What "anybody can do" is not the same thing as
what can be done "quickly".

I also don't think you've written what you mean
when you say that "teaching somebody how to ...
cannot be picked up quickly." Do you mean
that the ability to teach someone how to critically
analyze cannot be picked up quickly, or that the
ability to "critically analyze" cannot be picked up
quickly? If the latter, I agree. The ability to critically
analyze cannot be picked up quickly -- it must be
developed over time. Experienced tech writers
generally have this ability. That goes for the ability
to "critically analyze" logic and sentence structure, by the
way.

But that aside, it is not necessary to "critically
analyze a complex system" for most technical writing
assignments, though I have no doubt that somewhere
that requirement exists.

One more point I have my doubts about about
is this one:

> "Anybody can learn a tool or how to format graphics."

I don't know what "learn a tool" means, but I
would guess that it means "learn how to use
a tool."

I also don't know what "how to format graphics"
means. It isn't like, say, learning to swim or learning to
ride a bike. There isn't just one way to "format
graphics." And in fact I have found that the ability
to use graphics effectively varies widely among
technical writers. There seems to be a large component
of innate ability involved here. I find that tech writers
either have that innate ability or they don't. They can
be taught only so much about visual design, but to be
really good at it seems to require something that
can't be taught (though it can be practiced and perfected).

Like writing, actually.

--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia




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