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Subject:TechWriting for Ph. D's From:JRDerr -at- aol -dot- com To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Tue, 9 Nov 1999 21:08:21 EST
I am a soon-to-graduate Ph. D in English and, like many of my fellow Ph. D
grads, I am facing a rather bleak job market for English professors. One
possible avenue for employment that I have discussed with some others in the
department is techwriting. This seems to me like it is a fairly good option
since it is a growing area (unlike the professorial job market) which
requires writing skills, the ability to read and synthesize complex and
difficult material, the ability to work on long term self-directed projects
(rather like a doctoral dissertation) My question to all of you on the list
is how does one break into techwriting if one has previously pursued an
academic career? Most of us have rather limited technical knowledge, but we
have the ability and the desire to learn new things rather quickly. Is this
a viable option or am I comletely misinformed?
Also, do you think that listing a Ph. D on one's resume is detrimental. I
have had potential employers tell me that I couldn't possibly be interested
in working for them since I was so used to the ivory tower (ironically I was
working at an inner city correspondence high school at the time)
