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You are right to say that writing skills are more
important that tools skills. But what are writing
skills? I asked this question on this listserv a ways
back; the general consensus given to me was that the
most important element of writing skills is the
ability to properly structure (i.e., organize)
information. Structured writing skills was
specifically mentioned.
But what are structured writing skills? On the
Infomapping web site, Charles Horn, generally credited
as having "invented" structured writing, states that,
in the main, structured writing is all about analysis.
This explains the fallacy of writing skills tests:
You are testing for implementation skill - a much
lesser skill - not for analysis skill. The real test
is to ask the person being tested to create what
he/she would use as input to text creation - not to
create text.
Tony Markos
--- David Loveless <daveloveless -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>.... as one of the wisest men I know once said, "You
can teach anyone to use RoboHelp, DreamWeaver,
whatever. But you can't teach anyone how to write."
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