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Subject:Journalism to Tech writer From:Tammy Williams <Tammy_Williams -at- OCLC -dot- ORG> Date:Thu, 3 Mar 1994 12:25:46 -0400
Message:
When I began my first technical writing position, I had a BA in
journalism/English. I was also working on an MS in technical
writing. Initially, I had some difficulty making the transisiton
because I did not have to know the subjects that I wrote about as a
journalist as well as I had to know them to write technical
documentation. As a journalist, I had to know things from a surface
level. For instance, to write an article about computers, a
journalist might need to know the features of the machine that are
usually discussed in advertising brochures. These features include
the size of the monitor, the type of monitor (SVGA), the speed of the
CPU chip, the amount of memory, the number and types of drives, and
the type of keyboard.
As a technical writer, I have to know all of the above as well
as how to upgrade the computer by adding drives and memory sticks. I
also can look at the computer from the inside and identify its
components.
As a journalist, I told people about how things work; as a
technical writer, I TEACH them how to make things work. My skills
are more refined.
Tammy Williams/ williams -at- oclc -dot- org
