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> As the company's editor, I have been asked by my boss to give a brief
> report/evaluation of the writers and their competence with the
applications
> we use.
"competence with the applications we use" should be way down the list of
things assessed. I'm not even sure it's worth mentioning. Unless you're
doing something remarkably complex (and haven't documented it properly),
any competent tech writer can learn your tools fairly quickly.
The single most important thing is writing ability. Barring miracles,
anyone who cannot already write clear, coherent, readable prose has no
hope of being an effective tech writer.
Some combination of intelligence, curiosity and background in the subject
area is also vital. The exact combination varies among writers and from
project to project, but you need enough of those to comprehend whatever
it is you're documenting.
Then there are an assortment of "people skills": extracting info from
developers, understanding user requirements, ...
For many assignments, graphical, layout, indexing, ... abilities come
into play as well.
After those (and likely a few I've missed), you might consider tools.
