JBergen & Jpittman's "Newbie" Reply (long)

[Mary Daly Solman <Dalysolman -at- AOL -dot- COM>]

Dear Jpittman49,

This is the "newbie" again.  Please send your response again -- I was unable
to open 16 of the e-mail messages posted on 10/18, including yours.  I don't
know what happened, but I'm up and running now and would appreciate your
input.

JaneBergen, DianeRitchey, S.Schoenfeld -- thanks for your info and
assistance!

JaneBergen, some follow-up:  I certainly realize that tech writing entails
more than good grammar skills.  Perhaps I was, in the interest of brevity,
much too vague about my prior  educational and professional endeavors.  I
have no intention of posting a resume here <g> so suffice it to say that:
1)  My primary dicipline is political science, Arab Studies emphasis
2)  A  speech-comm journal published one of my papers.  The focus:  physical
culture and physical accents involved when Westerners must learn to live and
work in Arab cultures (research was conducted throughout Morocco).  The paper
was written as a handbook for foreign service employees.
3)  I served as Associate Editor in Wash., DC, at Search for Common Ground.
 My main duties were abstracting, copy writing, database management, and
conducting information interviews.  Again, Middle Eastern topics.
4)  My secondary discipline is medically-based massage therapy (not too much
Middle Eastern stuff going on in Colorado!  <g>).  Throughout my clinical
training, I produced reams of medical documentation/case studies.  This
information was presented to instructors and clients alike -- thus my
audience varied in their sophistication and understanding of anatomy and
physiology and I wrote/presented accordingly.

I suppose that if I could wish on a lucky star, I would combine disciplines,
head overseas, and do medical documentation in the Middle East <g>.  I am,
however, planning to stay in the Colorado market for a while and wish to
shift my skill sets a bit so that I may do independent writing/analysis.
 Massage therapy is a marvelous field, but I enjoyed the documentation
aspects and the treatment plan evaluation more than actually giving massages
to people.  I also enjoy research and documentation and would LOVE to work on
medical database or software projects.

So, once again, any ideas for independent work?

Thanks, all, for reading and assisting!

--MDS

"Education is experience
     and the essence of experience
            is self-reliance."  -Merlin, The Once and Future King, T.H.
White.