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16.Open question: what do you wish that college students would learn about
technical editing?
The ability to discard conventional methods of editing in order to finish a
project on time. Unfortunately, this ability is essential in the software
development world. I have seen a lot of highly educated people who can not
work well in environments that are defined by fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants
business forces, such as software development, where resources are thin and
pressure is high. School does not teach someone how to bend the rules in
order to keep your job. This art of knowing when to bend rules and when to
abide by them in order to meet deadlines is the ultimate skill of a good
tech writer.
I often out-perform other writers with better degrees and higher IQs, simply
because I understand how to adapt to the insane software development world.
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Matthew Danda
dandam -at- 1stnet -dot- net
Disclaimer? What's that?
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