Re: Senior Tech Writers Needed in San Ramon, CA.

[Chuck <writer -at- BEST -dot- COM>]

This is just another example of the maxim: it depends.

Just look at two examples: one PH.D. in English who understands some of
the qualifications that a good technical writer needs, another who had
to "clean up" the mess left by another Ph.D. I can assume that the
original reaction was the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's
back," a response to a perception of another clueless HR person. I have
had plenty of experience with those, as have some of the recruiters I've
worked with. Still, there are people in the technical writing industry
who came here with English or Journalism degrees--especially when
technical writing degrees and certificates are a fairly recent
innovation in many areas.

There is a process of ongoing education here too. Many HR people, as
well as many engineering managers, don't see technical writing as an
engineering discipline. As a result, it might not be on their mind that
a Technical Communication degree might be available, so they look toward
what their experience says is the closest thing. Heck, when I purchased
my class ring and wanted an emblem representing my degree, the
salesperson was totally clueless, and I had to create a kludge.

At my school (the University of Washington), the Technical Communication
department (at the time of my graduation, 1993, one of only three
full-fledged TC departments in the country) is part of the Engineering
school, not Arts & Sciences. Degree requirements include a solid core of
both English and technical competencies. Another plus side is that it is
not a requirement of students in the other engineering disciplines to
take at least one basic TC class before graduation.

On more than one occasion I have started a job and have found that the
expectation of a technical writer was to "just write." In time, I was
able to demonstrate a skill set far beyond "just" writing, a skill set
that adds a much larger value to the development team. I can do design
of documents, both print and online. I can help evaluate and design the
UI, and can uncover usability bugs. I can choose the right tools and
technologies (especially in the cutting-edge world of online Help
technologies) to get the job done right. I can (at least to some extent)
talk the language of programmers because I have taken a number of
programming classes.

I am by far not the only one with a full set of technical writing tools,
tools that go far beyond "just" writing.

I can understand the visceral reaction to a post that seems to not
exhibit that understanding. I have reacted the same way at times.
Usually, though, I vent at my recruiter, or sometimes co-workers.
meanwhile, the education process continues, slowly.

"Bauman, R. Scott (C)" wrote:
>
> I am in the final stages of my Ph.D. in English, and have been teaching
> Freshman Composition for over seven years.  I am also working for the summer
> rewriting the garbage that some business major wrote--over 1300 pages of it.
> In a perfect world, techies and MBAs would have writing skills, but most
> people put little to no emphasis on them, to the point of getting bent out
> of shape when their writing is criticized, as the current uproar about an
> English degree demonstrates.  It sounds to me like the fault is in the
> communication between the tech side and the writing side.  A good writer,
> given the proper information, can write about anything--if your employer
> wanted a user guide that followed workflow, the writer should have been
> given a workflow, or at least training on the software, and he probably
> didn't.
>
> Check the stats: English and Liberal Arts majors are highly employable,
> because they've learned to think rather than been trained in a certain
> technology or field.
>
> Scott Bauman
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brad [mailto:kiwi -at- BEST -dot- COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 1999 11:39 AM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Re: Senior Tech Writers Needed in San Ramon, CA.
>
> What on earth do they think a degree in Journalism has to do with qualifying
> anyone to be a technical writer?
>
> Regarding an English major, someone with a PhD in English wrote my
> employer's version 1.0 documentation. My employer is a startup; they knew
> they needed a writer; they naively assumed that certainly a PhD would know
> what he/she was doing. WRONG! The *absolute* worst technical writing drivel
> I have ever seen was written by that person. Although his two documents--a
> User Guide and an Administrator Guide--did have complete sentences with
> complete with punctuation, the content and organization was worst than
> anything that I've seen engineers or technical support staff shovel together
> and call it technical documentation. Perhaps the PhD thought he was writing
> a research paper or a novel. His two documents had absolutely no task
> orientation--no procedures at all. Imagine a User Guide that doesn't tell
> your customer how to do things! <gasp!>
>
> After he left the company, I came in an performed a major rewrite of one of
> his documents. Believe me, it's like comparing day and night.
>
> By the way, I'm a Business Administration major with a minor in German. I
> recently won an award in the STC competition. Actually, it's my study of
> German that has greatly helped my understanding of the nuts and bolts of
> English more so than any set of English courses that I had taken in college.
>
> We are a diverse group of professionals. Anyone who *insists* that a
> candidate *must* have an English or Journalism degree is a red flag that
> they are clueless. I would look elsewhere for a job, and it's to their own
> disadvantage that they are missing or disqualifying some good talent.
>
> Brad
>
> |
> | Tony,
> |
> | Can you believe this guy? I post and ad and this guy wants to know why I
> | want someone with an English degree. . . .  I guess he has a lot of free
> | time.
> |
> | Just curious. . . is this something that is a hot debate topic on this
> | list?
> |
> | -Terri
> |
> | > -----Original Message-----
>

--
"[Programmers] cannot successfully be asked to design for users
because...inevitably, they will make judgments based on the
difficult of coding and not on the user's real needs."
        - Alan Cooper
        "About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design"

Chuck Martin
writer"at"best.com    www.writeforyou.com

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