Re: Conceit, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Competition

[Mark Baker <mbaker -at- OMNIMARK -dot- COM>]

Porrello, Leonard wrote:
>
>Surely you jest, no?

 in response to my saying:

>>It follows that someone who requires training to become a
>> tech
>> writer cannot in fact become one at all, since they evidently lack the
>> essential attribute of being able to pick something up without training.

No, I don't jest. There are people who can figure things out for themselves
and people who can't. Tech writers must be the kind of people who can. If
not, how can they do their jobs? I agree with Eric that most of the skills
of a tech writer can be both learned and taught, and it may be that this one
can be learned too, though I am highly skeptical of the notion that it can
be taught. But it must exist in anyone who hopes to succeed as a tech
writer.

If you want to be a tech writer you have to be able to figure things out for
yourself. If you have that gift, then you can figure out how to be a tech
writer for yourself. Thus if you *require* training, you are not qualified
to be a tech writer.

This is not to say that training cannot be useful, if it is good training. I
won't touch the subject of whether there is in fact good training to be had.
But let's not oversell training either. There is, for instance, no
discernible correlation between creative writing training and the production
of readable works of fiction. (Actually, I'd bet there is in fact a
correlation -- a negative one).

(Just to bring this into conformance with my previous comments about the
commercial utility of documentation , I should qualify "to succeed as a tech
writer" a little and say something like "to add substantial commercial value
to a product through documentation."In this profession, as in almost every
other, incompetence is no barrier to success, I merely limits your options a
little.)

Mark

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