Re: Is the STC worth it?

["William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>]

I think Tony nails it with these two points.

A technical writer is valuable for the experience in areas outside the 
writing. Anyone can write; we all learned in third grade. And Microsoft Word 
has both spell checking and grammar checking. It is knowing how to read that 
C++ and explain it, explain the care and maintenance of that jet engine, 
explain operating that new radio system, and so on.

And the country has gone nuts with the demand for degrees. I've been told 
many times, the type of degree doesn't matter; you just have to have a 
degree. As such, a degree is necessary for technical writing, although most 
of the world has no idea what we do or how to build a curriculum for it. 
Until 10-15 years ago, technical writers typically didn't have degrees, or 
if they did, they were in something else like engineering, programming, 
technology, English, Journalism, and such. The experienced tech writer was 
as much a product of the school of hard knocks as anything, and many 
advanced degree holders are often put off by people like that.

So the STC certification was a plan to solve that issue.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Chung" <tonyc -at- tonychung -dot- ca>
To: "Charlotte Branth Claussen" <charlotteclaussen -at- gmail -dot- com>
Cc: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2014 6:07 PM
Subject: Is the STC worth it?