Re: Testing: The Final Word

[Tim Giles <tgiles -at- GSVMS2 -dot- CC -dot- GASOU -dot- EDU>]

Yes, John, I do think that a professor of technical writing is competent to
design tests for technical writers, more so, say, than someone with a
degree(s) in psychology. What you may not be aware of is that many
English departments, especially those offering advanced degrees in
rhetoric and composition, the area in English departments under
which technical writing falls, often offer social science courses
so that a doctoral candidate can write a dissertation based upon
data derived from student writing samples, surveys, AND testing.

However, let me assert that I feel that a portfolio is more valuable than
any test.  To reply to some other comments, I realize that a document
produced in a corporate environment is quite often a group endeavor.  I have
worked as a technical writer in telecommunications, and I have a portfolio
of my work.  On an interview, I can point out what my responsibilities were
in producing a document.

There is, of course, no perfect way to choose a technical writer.  Just as
an engineering degree in no way guarantees a candidate's ability as an
engineer, a degree in technical writing doesn't guarantee a writer will be
one like Geoffrey Chaucer whom we have remembered for centuries for his
**Treatsie on an Astrolabe**.

Tim Giles
In message Wed, 8 Mar 95 13:01 PST, catalyst -at- pacifier -dot- com (John Gear)  writes:


>>As a professor of technical writing ...
>>

> Okay, got that part


>>and hence someone who is qualified to create and evaluate tests for
>>
> technical writers,

> Can you take it a little slower, please?  I don't see how being a
> professor of anything leads to a "hence" for "qualified to create and
> evaluate tests."

> Could you go into a little more detail about the training and
> qualification program
> that equipped you with your testing qualification?  I'm excited to learn
> that there's a college or university that requires professors and
> instructors to learn about instruction and testing before being put in
> front of students and having the opportunity to test them. That's
> virtually unheard of.

> That is what you meant, isn't it?  Because otherwise it would seem that
> a hiring manager has every bit as much "qualified" to create and evaluate
> tests for folk they hire as you do for the students you teach.  You're a
> professor and you test students who want grades; someone else is a hiring
> manager and administers the toaster test to candidates who want jobs.  You
> and the hiring manager both have some expertise in your own areas and
> probably want to create fair tests that allow you to distribute the
> goodies fairly.

> P.S.:  I'm *not* disputing your abilities in either tech writing or
> testing. Just the bald assertion that your position=your qualification.
> That doesn't seem like a sound line of argument to argue against testing.



> John Gear (catalyst -at- pacifier -dot- com)
> "The same old fraternity boys, geezers in golf pants, cheese merchants,
> cat stranglers, corporate shills, Bible beaters, swamp developers,
> amateur cops, and old gasbags that we have known since time immemorial."
>                               --Garrison Keillor on the congressional GOP majority