Re: Conceit, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Competition

["Porrello, Leonard" <leonard -dot- porrello -at- COMPAQ -dot- COM>]

Mark,

If you exclude from the category "training" the following, I have no
contention with what you say:

Grammar books
Techwriting books
Impromptu feedback from peers
Feedback from editors

Being very self-motivated, I see these things as training materials, so I'd
lump them in with training. Regardless of whether I listen to someone's
spoken voice or their written voice, it is someone's voice to which I listen
(though I prefer written "voice" as I can read most things that I need for
my job much more quickly than anyone can speak to me about them).

Learning to communicate in writing is far more complicated than, say,
learning an application or how to use a widget. In your posting, you don't
seem to discern between the two. Recall that we all learned how to write
through "training" (though at the time it was called elementary school). And
you can be anything that Shakespeare took "training" from the Italians.

Leonard Porrello
Compaq, Telecom Division
Pubs, Omaha
402.384.7390


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Baker
> Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 1998 3:08 PM
> To:   Porrello, Leonard; TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      Re:      Conceit, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About
> Competition
>
> Porrello, Leonard wrote:
> >
> >Surely you jest, no?
>
>  in response to my saying:
>
> >>It follows that someone who requires training to become a
> >> tech
> >> writer cannot in fact become one at all, since they evidently lack the
> >> essential attribute of being able to pick something up without
> training.
>
> No, I don't jest. There are people who can figure things out for
> themselves
> and people who can't. Tech writers must be the kind of people who can. If
> not, how can they do their jobs? I agree with Eric that most of the skills
> of a tech writer can be both learned and taught, and it may be that this
> one
> can be learned too, though I am highly skeptical of the notion that it can
> be taught. But it must exist in anyone who hopes to succeed as a tech
> writer.
>
> If you want to be a tech writer you have to be able to figure things out
> for
> yourself. If you have that gift, then you can figure out how to be a tech
> writer for yourself. Thus if you *require* training, you are not qualified
> to be a tech writer.
>
> This is not to say that training cannot be useful, if it is good training.
> I
> won't touch the subject of whether there is in fact good training to be
> had.
> But let's not oversell training either. There is, for instance, no
> discernible correlation between creative writing training and the
> production
> of readable works of fiction. (Actually, I'd bet there is in fact a
> correlation -- a negative one).
>
> (Just to bring this into conformance with my previous comments about the
> commercial utility of documentation , I should qualify "to succeed as a
> tech
> writer" a little and say something like "to add substantial commercial
> value
> to a product through documentation."In this profession, as in almost every
> other, incompetence is no barrier to success, I merely limits your options
> a
> little.)
>
> Mark
>
>

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