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I'm just glad that someone gave me a chance when I started in the field,
even though I have a lousy English/Mathematics (liberal arts!) double
major and a Master's degree in Library Science to boot. (What good would
any of that do??) ;-)
Seriously, I think we've all met people who can write circles around us
who come from backgrounds we never would have guessed, so maybe we can
focus on the more interesting remarks people have had about the
*qualities* that writers or prospective writers have. For example, I
really appreciated Jean Weber's insightful remarks about the predictors
of tech writing success, emphasizing that different strengths are needed
for different kinds of tech writing assignments.
Besides, from a hiring perspective, looking for someone with a certain
major, attendees from a certain college, someone from a certain
geographical background, someone of a certain age/race/gender/etc., is
limiting your options. I don't know about the rest of you, but around
here it's hard to find good writers, and I don't want to exclude anybody
for those reasons. (Now spelling or grammatical errors in their resume,
that's another story!)
Just my two cents.
Lydia Wong
Technical Writer
FarPoint Technologies, Inc.
