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> This summer my university offered a class for English department graduate students called
> "Teaching Technical Writing". It was taught by a professor who has not worked as a tech writer
> recently (and may have never in the past) to graduate students who have NO technical writing
> experience but who wanted to learn how to teach it to undergraduates! Talk about the blind
> leading the blind! From what I heard, this class offered outdated information that was of little
> practical use to those needing to know about technical writing as it is practiced. Now these grad
> students, who now see themselves as qualified to teach tech writing because they took the
> class, are out there teaching students this same useless information. I'm glad I passed on this
> class to work as a tech writer this summer and learned tech writing on-the-job. At least my
> experience is based on real world circumstances and not on outdated academic research!
> Please, tech writers, get out there and tell universities, colleges, community colleges that you
> want to teach, then do it. It helps not only you (the original reason it was suggested), but also
> benefits the next generation of tech writers (who need people who really know how to do that
> which they teach).
Oh, if only college and university principals would read this!
We've tried Melissa, but there's the "closed shop" syndrome to defeat.
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Bernie McCann bi975 -at- ncf -dot- carleton -dot- ca
Efficient turnkey management of engineering and scientific publishing.
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