Re: Definition of Tech Writer, was STC is broken

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

>From where I sit as someone who frequently has to justify the
budgets to hire people, corporate management looks for
"writers" because the vast majority of documentation consists
of words, and the small component that does not is looked
upon as something that substitutes for words, or serves as
a different mean of delivering words.  There is a reason why 
the people who create movie scripts, music, radio ads, etc., 
are called "writers" even though they often create things that 
their intended audience never reads. The "core competency"
is the ability to deliver information using fewer words and 
smoother words than the engineers and techs can, in less
time and for less cost than it would take for them to make
the engineers do it.  You can all go ahead and pick some 
other title to put up at the tops of your resumes if you want, 
but there still better be "technical writer/writing" somewhere 
in the body, or you can look forward to finding yourselves 
being passed over by all the keyword searches, and spending
half the time you devote to selling yourselves to explaining
how whatever title you're calling yourself still means "technical
writer.".

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Beth Agnew" <beth -dot- agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca>
>I think the terminology does need to evolve in that direction. Employers 
> look for writers or even technical writers because that's traditionally 
> been the title of people who have performed those functions. It worked 
> in the 20th century but is insufficient for 21st century information age 
> needs. The lines are indeed blurry, but I think there are some core 
> competencies that we could identify as being the hallmarks of that 
> creature the Technical Communicator that other types of writers or 
> communicators or technical people do not possess. If we could agree on 
> those, she says idealistically, perhaps we'd have an easier time on the 
> advocacy and PR side of things.

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