Re: Dividing the Tech writer job

[Layna Anderson <laynaa -at- CARECOMPUTER -dot- COM>]

Date sent:              Mon, 10 Aug 1998 18:10:19 -0700
Send reply to:          GM Vick <gmv -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>
From:                   GM Vick <gmv -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>
Subject:                Re: Dividing the Tech writer job
To:                     TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU

> <<Typists do not "grow into technical writers.">>
>
> <<<<An arrow shot threw my heart as I read this. Nonsense! I began as a
> <<<<typist/typesetter in the early '70s.
>
> It may be that you're the exception. I've got to say, I've known a lot of
> admin/clerical workers in my time who were great typists and able to get
> around reasonably well in several software packages, but couldn't write a
> sentence to save their life.

Oh, but some of us COULD!  I was a word processor (a typist with better
equipment!) in a university office for years.  Faculty and staff came to me for
advice on sentence structure.  I rewrote vast quantities of engineering-related
text so that it made grammatical sense.  I was uneducated but I'd read so
much over the years, I knew what a good sentence looked like.  When I finally
went back to school for my BA in technical writing, my writing was leaps and
bounds ahead of that of many other students -- because I was USED to
expressing myself that way.  I'm not saying I'm the rule here, but remember
that those typists, word processors, Doc Grrrls, and the rest may be doing
more writing than you think.

Layna Andersen
***********************************
*   Layna Ayre Andersen   *  //// *
*    Technical Writer     *  O-O  *
* laynaa -at- carecomputer -dot- com *   ~   *
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