Re: STC Certification Survey

[Nancy McDonald <nmcdonald -at- OTECH -dot- COM>]

Having been certified, though in another field, I have some experience
with it, and some (strong) opinions, too. Before I was an "official"
tech writer, I was a teacher (and unofficial tech writer).

I've taught English (among other things) in both high school and
college, and I have had certificates in both Ohio and California.  In
order to teach (public) high school it was necessary that I have a
certificate. That is not true of the college level.

None of those certificates (I have four) have guaranteed my expertise or
my value.  Having a certificate has in many cases kept bad teachers in
the classroom.
I have found good and bad fellow teachers who have certificates (and
must have in high school) and good and bad teachers in college, without
certificates.

Basically, from my perspective, certification has created an immense
amount of beaucracy, number of jobs (maybe millions and millions of
clerks) and limits of impatience for the ones who have had to go through
the rigors of getting certification. (You should know about
certification in California... whewboy.) I can't tell you how many
useless tests that I have gone through in order to be certified to teach
English, but they were just part of the certification process.

In order to have technical writers certified, I would imagine them going
through similar sorts of testing (and studying) and getting in lines at
the certification clerk's office for signing forms, forms, forms. (And
more jobs created: getting people who will be making the certificates,
getting people to get other people to fill in forms, getting people to
put the forms in file cabinets, etc., etc.) But I don't think that would
guarantee expertise or value or worth.  I am a better writer because
I've written written written.  I learned the basics of grammar, syntax,
semantics, logic, argumentation, etc., in college  (and schools before
that). But if I have to go through more certification rigors, I would be
spending time away from writing... and the lack of practicing my skill
weakens my real worth.

Of course, the certificate is a symbol, supposedly so, anyway.  It
symbolizes you've passed the grammar tests, the spelling tests, the
countless tests, the tests for making you a tech writer.  But
ultimately, certification wasn't what made me a good teacher. (of course
I was a good teacher;-) Could all this be true of tech writing
certification????

ok, I've vented, now I'm better. I've got a user manual to write.

Nancy McDonald
nmcdonald -at- otech -dot- com

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