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Re: You're SUPPOSED to have good communication skills if you're a tech writer
Subject:Re: You're SUPPOSED to have good communication skills if you're a tech writer From:"Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- net -dot- au> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 28 May 2003 09:11:11 +1000
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Plato"
> If writing skills are so valuable (ie non-common, non-trivial), why
doesn't the
> marketplace then pay writers the same as doctors or programmers? Why has
the
> market overwhelmingly said tech writers with only writing skills will
> consistently make less than their technically minded counterparts.
Despite the rather silly subject line of this thread,
(you could just as well say that you're SUPPOSED
to understand technical subject matter if you're a
tech writer), there is a wide range of both technical skills
AND writing skills among professional tech writers.
Yes, it is true that good tech writers with more and
better technical qualifications can command higher
salaries than those without. Is that a surprise?
But who, I wonder, "are" all these tech writers
who are not "technically minded"? I've known
quite a few tech writers, and all of them have been,
to some extent, "technically minded" -- which
is why they are technical writers. The varying
degrees and kinds of technical expertise among
them result from varying levels of exposure and
interest. The same is true of the varying levels
of writing skills among them. The one or two who
were really deficient in their grasp of technical
subject matter were novices, who probably
didn't stay in the business for long.
To my mind, anyone who says that good writing
is "common" has not read much. My experience with
poorly-written software documentation, hardware
instruction sheets, and training materials -- and this
is supported by observations from outside our
profession -- has led me to conclude that weak
writing, design, and editorial skills are a greater
problem than lack of access to technical details.
In any software company (for example) it is easy
to find the people who know how the product is
built. If they don't have the technical specs in
their head, then they at least know where to
look in the code to find the answer.
A much more difficult task is finding someone
who can develop an information package, drawing
either on their own technical knowledge or that
of others (it doesn't really matter), that serves
the needs of a particular audience, and does so
efficiently and professionally.
I can go out on the Web today and download ten
software applications -- freeware, shareware,
trialware, whatever. Of those ten, some will have
no help file. Among those that do, most will have
been written by the programmer(s), and they
will have the following defects:
(a) They will tell me all sorts of technical details
that I don't really care about, and
(b) They will fail to tell me what I DO care about--
namely, how I USE the product.
Why is that? It is because the programmers
naturally want to write about what interests
*them* as programmers, and what interests
them is seldom what interests the consumer.
That is the picture I have of the market in which
we earn our living, developed over quite a few
years of professional writing on two continents.
I've known lots of programmers, engineers, and
analysts, but comparatively few with technical
communications skills (and by that I do not mean
familiarity with FrameMaker -- I mean
*communication* skills).
When I hire tech writers, the first thing I want
to know about them is whether they are capable
of producing a well-crafted paragraph. Everything
else comes second.
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