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Subject:who is qualified to be the tech writer god(dess) From:Cyndy Davis <kivrin -at- ZDNETMAIL -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 11 Aug 1998 07:43:41 -0700
Like many of you, I cringed at the phrase, Documentation girls. While reading all of the posts that recommend education, skills, and basic writing ability as neccessary for a techwriter, I found myself wondering what these people learned in school. Eric was right on when he quoted, "Anyone can be taught to write, edit, design,and so on; however, none of these is important unless the technical writer can assess the information needed, gather it, and use it to meet the audience's needs."
I used to teach high school English. There were very few students that walked into my class being "good" writers. There were a few that had a nice way of turning phrases, a few that were good at organizing their thoughts, but I didn't have any students that turned in a perfect draft right off the bat. Since it is extremely common that people graduate high school and college without competent writing skills, I find it ridiculous that its a common belief that if you can't write now, you can't write ever. Its not right! (sorry, couldn't help the alliteration)
A normal person with a normal amount of intelligence can learn to write well. It takes time and work.
When I started my job, I knew how to write. But I was not used to taking someone's text and revising and rewording it to make sense. That was something I tried NOT to do when I was a teacher. I didn't want to put student's thoughts into my words, I wanted them to find the correct words for them. It took a few weeks of encouragement from my boss before I learned to grab the manuscript, take what I could and trash/revise the rest. The mindset of a tech writer, question and check everything (if there are 5 fields, do they all have options, what happens if you press OK here?) is not something that a writer comes equipped with. A tech writer learns what type of questions that make the job on the job: whose revisions to really mess with, the amount to change a document if its going to be published soon?
I started writing specs a month ago. I had no idea how to start. I asked my boss what the purpose was and who the audience was. Once anyone, if they are a typist or a tech writer, learns who the document is destined for, they can help the document. Growing a typist into a tech writer takes more than just writing skill, you need to teach the writer that its ok to question and give them a place to ask the questions. As a writer gets more comfortable with questioning and working in the document, not just on top of the document, all the documents will be better quality.
Bottom line:
Teach what you want your staff/coworkers to do. Don't rely on everyone else having taught these people the skills that you want them to have. Send the "doc girls" to a community college class on basic writing skills, buy them a grammar manual, teach them FrameMaker. But while you give them skills, also let them know that they can change the document. Giving them permission to do their job the best they can is the best help you can give.
