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Subject:Re: TW Backgrounds From:Simon North <snorth -at- TEDOPRES -dot- NL> Date:Mon, 18 Dec 1995 09:58:42 GMT
As usual with such sweeping generalisations, the classifications are largely
innaccurate. You have left out at least one major group: people whose
interests were too wide to allow themselves to be squashed into a niche. I
consider myself to be a member of this group and I am personally acquainted
with several more. To illustrate, at school pure mathematics was my dream
subject but I also loved eng. lit. I went to university to study maths, stats
and computing but _hated_ statistics. Transferred to english and french lit.
studies. Career choices were too limited, so re-trained as avionics technician,
followed by 6 years 'in the field' as an electronics repair technician.
Now (past 13 years), technical author with (even though I say it myself) a
thorough understanding of electronics, software (several languages,
documentation
right down to compiler internals) and a wide range of engineering disciplines.
I am by no means an exception (certainly not in Europe at least). We are simply
people who never call decide between 'arts' and 'sciences'. Technical writing
is probably the only discipline that so perfectly combines the two.
Simon North
Documentation Engineer
mailing from, but not for ...
