educate the employers [certification]

[John Gough <gough -at- AUSTIN -dot- ASC -dot- SLB -dot- COM>]

Bill,

When hiring, I have found it difficult to seine out the people who
pose as technical writers but who are basically formatters at best.

I'm pretty good at weeding them out, because I have formal education in
tech comm (NCSU and Carnegie Mellon) and a lot of experience.

I don't think certification is going to help me, either as a professional
or in the process of hiring technical writers.

The problem of finding a technical writer is not just an issue
of writing skills, it also involves:
- familiarity and comfort with the particular work environment
    (small group, large group, existence or absence of support
     staff such as designers and editors and production)
- familiarity with subject matter. Technical savvy is a high predictor
    of success if other skills are present.
- motivation
- understanding of the way people think and learn (cog. psych)
- ability to juggle organizational priorities against principles
    of good practice (e.g., they want it sooner, not better)
- tools skills
- aptitude (ability to learn technical material quickly)

Certification might give me confidence that someone has covered
basic skills in writing and design. I doubt its scope can cover
much more, not because there is a lack of canon, but because there
will be a lack of agreement on what to teach and a lack of
evaluative skill in the bureacracy created to administer the
testing.

You need to understand that forming the bureacracy that establishes,
monitors, and administers the testing creates another variable
in the equation.  It is not necessarily true that they will
create and maintain a standard of skills that correlates with
what works in the marketplace.  Bureacracies are almost by
definition behind the times, and even worse, they form a point
of political influence. Irrelevant material can make its way
into the testing just because an influential academic or long-time
STCer pushes his or her program. The influence of "academic fad
of the month" is particularly strong in soft fields...try reviewing
various theories of the teaching of writing skills over the last
10 years. Compare a few rhetoric textbooks.

In addition, what do you do with people who already have degrees
or certificates in TW?  I am of the opinion that you should grant
them certification (good for x years) automatically.  If you
can't do that with confidence, then you have to say that even in
the academic community, which is far better equipped to teach
and test, there is not enough agreement to form a base for certification.

I have had discussions with certified Professional Engineers about
the certification process, and I think they have several things
going for them:

1. there is a well-defined canon of knowledge
2. the knowledge is based on "hard" principles: physics and law
3. there is agreement on how to test for knowledge
4. administration and maintenance includes a rotating (volunteer)
     review board that entertains proposals for adding, dropping,
     and modifying material in the tests

It may be possible to get to 1, though in my opinion that will
be a catfight *and* the resulting canon that can be agreed upon
will be smaller than hoped.

As for 2, we do not have the advantage of working according
to "hard" principles.  People may learn similar principles of
knowledge organization and information presentation, but in the
academic environment I don't see a standard use of terminology
or presentation.  Add to that the "useful oversimplification" that
programs like Information Mapping add to the equation.

Before voting on certification (and there better be a membership-wide
vote before adoptation), I want to see a fully-developed proposal
that states
(a) exactly what will be tested (most important)
(b) how the canon of testable material will be maintained
(c) who develops and reviews the materials, and at what cost

I have not seen sufficient work on anyone's part to justify a
favorable vote from me.  You seem to think that the existence
of a test is both necessary and sufficient condition to define
the existence of a profession.  As the existing professionals
demonstrate, it is not necessary. As failed certification efforts
in other fields have shown, it is not sufficient. Do we want
to bear the cost of an effort that may fail? I think we can
find better uses for our time and money.

In short, I am not confident that certification is a good solution
to the (employers') problem of qualifying applicants for technical
writing positions.  It covers too few of the important bases, and
is too expensive and controversial to develop and maintain.

We should consider instead an "educate the employer" campaign that
identifies the skills that may be important and how to interview
candidates and their portfolios.  Providing a resource to the people
who are having the problem is much less expensive and far more
reasonable than changing the world in order to lull employers into
a false sense of security given by a certificate.

We have genuine problems representing ourselves to employers, being
understood in our work environments, and determining who is qualified
to do what work.  I do not believe the false objectivity that certification
presents to employers will solve our problems.

John

>>Phillip,
>>  I have stated the answers to your questions already so many times in so
>>many ways, everyone is tired of hearing it. In case you didn't catch them,
>>I'll go over them again:
>>   Certification will give us a real profession with identifiable and
>>certifiable skills. We won't just be a gang of people doing whatever pleases
>>us and making some money at it. It will give us a way not just to learn
>>skills but to be qualified for them. And it will put members of the
>>profession in the driver's seat to decide the standards for the skills that
>>define the profession.
>>
>>Bill DuBay
>>Technical Writer
>>Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
>>email: bill_dubay -at- phoenix -dot- com
>>(714)790-2049 FAX: (714)790-2001

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