Re: What do you guys think of STCs new definition for technicalwriter?

["Bill Swallow" <techcommdood -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I've been looking at the proposed STC definition of the job of a
Technical Communicator and the more I look at it, the more "wrong" it
looks.

"Develop and design instructional and informational tools needed to
assure safe, easy, proper and complete use of technical goods.
Combines multi-media knowledge and strong communication skills with
technical expertise to educate across the entire spectrum of users'
abilities, technical experience, and visual and auditory
capabilities."

I'll do a dissection of sorts, as that'll be less wordy. ;-)

First, "informational tools" needs to go. It's an invented term that
requires some degree of techcomm job knowledge to correctly
understand.

"Assure", as was pointed out, is wrong in this context.

"Technical goods" is too specific and shouldn't be used. Not all TCs
cater to goods and not all cater toward technical things. Yet they are
TCs by HOW they work.

"Multi-media" is one word, not hyphenated. I'll argue that I don't
consider myself highly knowledgeable about multimedia, though I did
take an electronic media arts course or two back in college.

The most puzzling thing of all is that nowhere in the definition does
it say that, basically, TCs explain things to PEOPLE. We instead
educate across abilities, across expertise, and across capabilities.

I say we Ctrl+Alt+Del and start over.

-- 
Bill Swallow
HATT List Owner
WWP-Users List Owner
Senior Member STC, TechValley Chapter
STC Single-Sourcing SIG Manager
http://techcommdood.blogspot.com
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