RE: You're SUPPOSED to have good communication skills if you're a tech writer

["Mark Baker" <mbaker -at- ca -dot- stilo -dot- com>]

Jan Henning

> Knowing how to use machine X is valuable:
> - if there is a machine X
> - if there is somebody who will buy the goods produced
>
> Knowing how to write is valuable:
> - if there is something to write about
> - if somebody will read it
>
> I fail to see the fundamental difference;

Good. There isn't one. That's the point I have been trying to make. Writing
is of contingent value, not valuable "in itself".

I made knowledge of using machine X inherently valuable only by positing (as
a point of argument) that using machine X was inherently good. It was a
rhetorical stance, pure and simple.

However, we should not neglect to notice that the people who hire tech
writers tend (with a deplorable lack of philosophical sophistication) to
regard having people use their machine as inherently valuable. They tend to
regard our writing skills as only contingently valuable, and only of value
at all insofar as we can demonstrate that we can also understand their
machine and explain it to other people.

If you can find an employer who is willing to treat writing skills as if
they were an absolute value rather than a contingent one, good for you. I
fear that your search will likely be in vain.

---
Mark Baker
Senior Technical Writer
Stilo Corporation
1900 City Park Drive, Suite 504 , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1J 1A3
Phone: 613-745-4242, Fax: 613-745-5560
Email mbaker -at- ca -dot- stilo -dot- com
Web: http://www.stilo.com

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