Titles

["Daniel G. Dresner" <daniel -dot- dresner -at- NCC -dot- CO -dot- UK>]

 >What titles exist for technical writers other than Technical
Writer?...

From 'The Manual', December 1989 . . .

To write or to author, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the publications department to suffer
The scribblings and jottings of outrageous programmers
Or to take arms against a sea of users
And by opposing end them?  Technical writer, technical author;
Technical author, perchance a consultant; ay there's the rub;
For as documentation consultants what dreams may come
When we are technical editors of others' toil,
Must give us pause.  There's the respect
That makes calamity of such job titles;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of customers,
The team leader's wrong and the project manager's contumely,
The pangs of technical clerks, the technical approval's delay,
The insolence of the rest of the office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy professional writer takes,
When a documentor his (or her) quietus make
With a rough draft? Who would verbose manuals bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of contract authoring,
That undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No information design consultant returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather do our own desktop publishing
Than take on word processing systems others know not of.
This documentation doth make cowards of us all
And thus the native hues of poor printing on coloured papers
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of pretentious slip cases,
And enterprises of great grammatical uncertainty
With this regard their personnel departments turn away,
And lose their job descriptions

********************************************

Happy new year to all





************************************************************
Danny Dresner
Publications/NCC Quality Manager
The National Computing Centre Ltd.
Oxford House, Oxford Road
Manchester M1 7ED, UK
daniel -dot- dresner -at- ncc -dot- co -dot- uk
Tel: +44 (0)161 228 6333 Direct Line: +44 (0)161 242 2352
Fax: +44 (0)161 236 9877
http://www.ncc.co.uk/

"Logic . . . merely allows one to be wrong with authority!"

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html