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I would expect a successful candidate to have some technical background or
training that is applicable to what he or she is applying to write about.
This wouldn't have to be specific to the industry - I have made laboratory
instrument and semiconductor fab equipment writers out of people with
experience field servicing Xerox copiers, for example - but anyone who
hasn't spent any time at all putting hands on some reasonably relevant tech
is going to be at a severe disadvantage in most circumstances I've worked
in.
I wouldn't expect a tech writer to be a grammarian either, but I would
expect a good one to be able to pull off a reasonable impersonation of one
when necessary to sell rewrites to SMEs and management ("I'm not a
grammarian, but I play one on TV").
Gene Kim-Eng
On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 10:19 AM, Porrello, Leonard
<lporrello -at- illumina -dot- com>wrote:
> Technical Writing is a specialized subset of expository writing, and I
> would expect technical writing programs to teach that. Along with that, I
> would expect students who complete degree or certificate programs to have a
> solid understanding of PCs, development lifecycle methodologies, HATs
> (including single-sourcing), graphics arts tools, and version control and
> tech writing best practices. There should also be some sort of
> indoctrination to the idea that tech writers need to be self-directed
> learners. I would expect a candidate with a degree or certificate to have
> very good writing skills, but I would not expect someone who wants to be a
> tech writer to be a grammarian. Is there some other set of "technical
> information" that you would expect?
>
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