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"Goober Writer" <gooberwriter -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote in message news:214459 -at- techwr-l -dot- -dot- -dot-
>
> > >I believe the technical communication profession is
> > organized into three =
> > >main disciplines:
> >
> > >1. Authoring (writing)
> > >2. Editing=20
> > >3. Desktop publishing
> >
> > You forgot:
> >
> > 4. Illustrating.
>
> Scratch them all. There is one tech comm discipline,
> and that is communicating clearly to an audience. You
> can do it with words, with pictures, with sounds, by
> editing something someone else did, by designing the
> medium appropriately, by working with the product
> designers and developers, whatever.
>
> I am a technical communicator. I use all tools
> available to me to get the right info to the right
> people at the right time.
Well, if you're going to get that high-level, then I would say there are really
two disciplines:
- Authoring: Writing new material
- Editing: Fixing up other people's material.
This is, in my mind, the real difference. Most of the "technical communicators"
or "technical writers" out there are merely repairing, cleaning up, or
designing other people's work. That requires a totally different set of skills
than sitting down with a blank piece of paper and writing something from
scratch.
Furthermore, fixing up other people's work does not mean you a qualified to
also author. Authoring demands intimate and extensive subject matter expertise.
Whereas editing (cleaning up other people's work) does not. You can get away
with a modest or meager amount of subject matter expertise and still be a good
editor or desktop publisher.
Editors do not always make good authors. They become too interested in the
mechanics and design of material and not the subject matter. An author often
has very little interest in the layout or design of material, focusing instead
on the content.
Furthermore, and this will depress a lot of you, but most of the world does not
consider "communication" skills all that valuable (except maybe translators).
Sorry, but pretty much everybody has the capacity to communicate. And in my
experience, many people who call themselves "professional communicators" aren't
really any more adept at communicating that people in other professions.
Hence, walking around like you are the only person capable of communicating
while everybody else is just a mute moron, is a real good way to get ignored
and loathed by co-workers. You have to bring more to the table than the ability
to communicate.
Andrew Plato
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