Re: Advice for beginner

[Chris Kowalchuk <chris -at- bdk -dot- net>]

Ms. Baxter, Mr. Plato, and all,

I believe that "beginner"  was referring to writing in the field of
psychology etc. rather than the use of psychology in the field of
technical communications. Since the field exists, I feel certain that
there are people who write for it. Beginner should be advised, however,
that many people do make a distinction between science writing and
technical writing, to the point where there are separate professional
societies and publications etc. to address their peculiar concerns.
Although both are generally documentary in nature, I suspect that
science writing tends to be more general/theoretical whereas technical
writing tends to treat very specific, practical applications with very
little theoretical component at all (although there's plenty of theory
around how to do the tech writing, it's just that the writing itself
isn't theoretical).

If one is interested in process writing, divorced from computers and
other technical problems, then there is plenty of work in the insurance
industry and other bureaucratic/governmental types of organizations who
are long on process in their everyday activities, but where this process

is not necessarily tied to the operation of a product or software
application. Probably having some business education or experience would

be helpful for entering those fields, however.

Chris Kowalchuk