Re: Strong process creating a writer?

[Alan Miller <alan -dot- miller -at- EDUCATE -dot- COM>]

Most technically competent persons can become adequate technical writers with a good strong process, guidance and instruction. Clearly, the better the raw materials, the better the finished product. Also, the better the forging process, the better the product. I know, writers aren't commodities (though the "oddities" part might apply to some of us :-{)), but I think we all get the picture. A talented writer can languish and never reach his/her full potential in one environment, and another writer with modest ability can flourish in another.

In my own experience training potential technical writers for the petro-chemical and electric power industries, I have had both types of potential writers, and most other types as well. With few exceptions, these folks could learn the research, organizational, writing, and editing skills that make up the core of technical writing. Because they also knew their subject matter (it's true, one should always write what one knows) and had well-defined documentation processes, virtually all could produce adequately written documentation (operating procedures, descriptions of engineered systems, and the like).

To make something more than an adequate technical writer, one needs the good raw materials to work with and a good process to do the work.

Al Miller
Sylvan Prometric
alan -dot- miller -at- educate -dot- com

Sic hoc legere scis nimium erunditionis habes.


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