Re: Re[2]: Certification Issues

["Wing, Michael J" <mjwing -at- INGR -dot- COM>]

Bill, I find it interesting that you keep stressing that certification
is not something that would be foisted upon us from the outside.
Instead, you purport that it will arise and grow within the technical
writing community.
This exposes an obvious paradox.  The very people with whom you are
waging this one-man battle against are indeed a microcosm of the
technical writing community.  From what I observe, it is overwhelmingly
against certification.  Are you going to certify us by yourself ;^) ?

Are you listening to points against certification?

-- The skills, tools, and knowledge in this field is too diverse to
capture with a 'one-test-covers-it-all' certificate.

-- Will established writers be 'grand-fathered'?  Tech writing degrees
did not exist when many of us went to college.

-- The rapid change in technology, tools, and so forth change so rapidly
that currency of the certification would require constant maintenance
and restesting.

-- The legal aspects of certifying someone that turns out to be a 'bum
steer'

These issues are coming from the very community that you say will create
and monitor certification.  Look at the reactions within this sample of
the profession.  You want the community to establish certification for
something that cannot be equitably certified?  We cannot agree on using
one space or two after a period!

Notice that I said equitably certified.  I believe that a group (or even
you by yourself) could come up with 'A' certification standard.
However, an equitable standard?  I don't believe it for a minute.  Any
certification standard will be self-serving to those who designed it.
That's because its intent is to exclude.

Therefore, I agree that its main purpose is exclusionary.  Some feel
that the field has been tainted with the stench of the 'undeserving'.
They feel that as a result they now carry some of the smell.  Let's
separate the wheat from the chaff with a certificate?  I say, let the
market dictate the needs. Not a self-serving piece of paper.

Based on what I read, I thinks it's a safe bet to conclude that
certification will not happen.  (Certificate, I don't need no stinkin
certificate).

The technical writing field is a wide open frontier.  I don't know about
the rest of you, but I like it that way!

Mike

Michael Wing (mjwing -at- ingr -dot- com)
Principal Technical Writer
Intergraph Corporation; Huntsville, Alabama
http://www.ingr.com/iss/products/mapping/
(205) 730-7250

"But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good"
-- Paul (1 TH 5:21)


>----------
>From:  Bill DuBay[SMTP:bill_dubay -at- phoenix -dot- com]
>Sent:  Tuesday, June 17, 1997 12:13 PM
>To:    TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject:       Re: Re[2]: Certification Issues
>
>Arlen,
>  Certification gives you the opportunity to have your skills publicly
>ratified by your peers,  the most objective validation of skills available.
>It gives you a professional group that not only can identify new technologies
>and challenges, but also equip and certify you for them.
>
>Bill DuBay
>Technical Writer
>

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