Re: Definition of Tech Writer, was STC is broken

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lauren" <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net>
> If all specialized writing is technical writing, then what do you call
> general writing for business?  General business writing or writing that
> covers a broad, rather than specific area cannot be both specialized
> (specific) and general (broad), however, both types of writing exist in
> business.

What you call "general writing" is usually posted as "copywriting," 
and it pays rather poorly.

> Also, I certainly do not think that specialized writing implies that writing
> is technical writing because the author specializes in professional writing.
> I think that technical writing is specialized because the writing is focused
> on a specialized subject.  There is business writing that is not focused on
> a specialized subject but is more general, like financial summaries that
> really do not get into specifics but present a broad financial view of a
> company.  How can this type of writing be non-specialized, but still be
> called technical? 

Financial summaries are not "non-specialized" writing.  They are,
for the most part, prepared by the same people who have already
written the detailed and very complex financial reports on which
the summaries are based.  The introduction to an aircraft engine 
service manual is an overview of the operations that will be found 
in subsequent volumes of the manual.  By your reasoning, this 
writing, which does not "get into specifics," is not a procedure 
and does not impart engineering data is "non-specialized" and 
therefore "not technical writing."  To most everyone who works 
on it or uses it, however, it is.

Gene Kim-Eng

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