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Re: Original work [was RE: STC certification program: skeptical curmudgeonlyness, part II]

Subject: Re: Original work [was RE: STC certification program: skeptical curmudgeonlyness, part II]
From: "Peter Neilson" <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
To: "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, "Janoff, Steve" <sjanoff -at- illumina -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:15:44 -0400

On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:37:13 -0400, Janoff, Steve <sjanoff -at- illumina -dot- com> wrote:

And in fact, how can you even prove that *anything* is your own work, even when it is?

Once in a while the other side of this emerges. A newly hired writer, X, with an extensive portfolio, was unable to accomplish even the simplest writing assignments. She whined that she should not be expected to learn the doc-prep software. One of the managers brought her ten-year-old daughter to work one Saturday, and in just one day the young girl completed a good portion of what the supposed tech writer had not been able to accomplish in several months.

So X was let go, and Y came in. Y was given the same cube that X had occupied. Y's first words on seeing X's leftover nameplate were, "You had X working here? WHAT DID SHE TELL YOU SHE WROTE?"

As for proving that some piece of writing is mine? Unless it's something that shows up in a blog to which I contribute or here on TECHWR-L, I am hard pressed after a year or two if I have to pick my own words out of a collaborative effort. "Yes, I may have written a portion of this. It's really pretty [good, mediocre, rotten], isn't it! I'd like to believe that I improved it over the original version."

Some may think that by showing the dates on computer files, precedence of creation of documents can be established. Unfortunately anyone with admin access to an computer (like YOU on your own PC) can adjust the file system's notion of the date of any file. To establish solid dates, a system must have an uncorruptable method for registering data. Few businesses and hardly any individuals have computer records with this kind of provable integrity. Your online portfolio is certain to lack such solid evidence. Printed books that include the author's name are harder to fake. Ordinary tech writing has never produced many of those; probably even fewer now.

For me, I guess a lot of it goes back to being able to produce managers from the Scriptorium Invisible.
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RE: Original work [was RE: STC certification program: skeptical curmudgeonlyness, part II]: From: Janoff, Steve

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