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Subject:Re: Definition of Engineer (was: What to do?) From:k k <turnleftatnowhere -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 30 Oct 2003 12:21:18 -0800 (PST)
>
> We might make it so the title of "Technical Writer"
> (or similar) represents
> some level of minimum competence, rather than anyone
> being able to lay claim
> to the term just because they say they are.
>
The idea of responding to the tech writer's image
problem by requiring some kind of licensing procedure
is an inward-looking approach that in my opinion is
edging toward taking votes on who gets thrown out of
the lifeboat. You know that if we did have officially
required testing and licensing, some people now making
a living as tech writers would no longer be able to do
so and would have to find some other way to pay the
bills.
> True, the existing process can weed out the
> incompetents (and the fond
> fondlers), but not so much during flush times, with
> the result that far too
> many people still have "12:00" flashing on their VCR
> because they (a) still
> can't figure out the interface to change it, and (b)
> still can't decipher
> the instructions.
I take it from this passage, you mean that when times
are flush and business is booming, companies will use
"warm body" criteria and hire less-qualified people to
fill tech writing slots. How will they be stopped from
doing that by requiring some kind of licensing? If we
restrict the number of people who are allowed to call
themselves tech writers, and companies that need more
writers find out the pool of licensed tech writers
isn't large enough for their needs, they'll hire any
kind of writer and try to turn him into what they
need.
There were posts on this list earlier, about the
process of setting up a new technical documentation
group. One poster on this list wrote of a place where
the company decided to "make" tech writers by taking
people with other skills and then teaching them the
technical side of the job. If you have a licensing
process that reduces the number of people legally
allowed to call themselves tech writers, this DIY
approach will become the norm for any company that has
the resources for it. And that will reduce the number
of licensed tech writers getting hired. And at that
point are we supposed to respond by weeding ourselves
out more by even more stringent qualification
procedures?
Licensing cannot do any good for tech writers unless
you also find a way to keep companies from exploring
other means of hiring writers. At the same time you
set up a licensing board for tech writers, are you
going to enact other laws that prevent tech companies
from hiring ex-newspaper reporters?
The VCR clock problem that you cite is not necessarily
the fault of technical writers. A lot of problems of
that sort come from:
A) Translation problems. In some cases, those
indeciperable instructions are originally written in
something other than English, then run through a
computer translation program and the results printed
as is. There may or may not be a tech writer who has a
chance to look at them before they go out with the
products. In in some cases where a tech writer is
involved he's short of time and has instructions to do
nothing but pretty up the results, so he isn't given
the opportunity to make the docs more usable.
B) Business decisions by the tech writers' bosses.
We've all been in situations where we knew the docs
weren't as good as they could be (or even as good as
they needed to be) but the boss said ram it, send them
out as is, nothing matters but making the deadline.
I'm sure most of the people on this list have been in
more than one job where they were required to write
vaporware, just to have something to throw out the
door on the due date.
Licensing will no nothing to solve these problems,
especially the latter. There are a lot of tech writers
out there whose abilities are perfectly good but their
situations aren't. Licensing for them will be nothing
but an expense and a bother.
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