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Subject:Re: PageMaker? what to do From:Gwen Barnes <gwen -dot- barnes -at- MUSTANG -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 6 Nov 1995 16:40:54 GMT
To: Techwr-l -at- vm1 -dot- ucc -dot- okstate -dot- edu
-> Thanks for your response. I can't disagree with what you said, but I think
-> that dilution of a writer's job is bad for the profession. We have suddenly
-> become typists, page layout/design experts, Web design experts, advertising
-> experts, document conversion experts, etc. IMHO, this will not be good for us
-> in the long run.
Based on what I saw in some of the resumes I reviewed for an open
position here several months ago, I would have to say that many
"professional" writers don't even consider spelling and grammar
important, to say nothing of design and page layout. They don't use
dictionaries because that aggravates their RSIs, I suppose.
There isn't much left of the profession to dilute at that stage -- it's
sort of like "homeopathic writing", in that only a small quantity of
that kind of swill is enough to invoke migraines and homicidal rage in
real writers.
I suppose this is also what gives some of these same people the moral
authority to tell everyone never to use sans-serif fonts or justified
margins, when it's clear that the only time many of them actually read
something, it was to find out what's going to be on TV next.
