Tech Writer Lawsuit

[Beth Agnew]

We don't have to send techwriters out into the wilderness to hone their 
professional skills. Simple things such as document ownership, good 
project management, displaying integrity, building relationships (with 
SMEs and others), using good communication skills for more than just 
documentation -- all of these are taught and/or enhanced in our program. 
They all add up to professionalism, and I firmly believe that when you 
conduct yourself in a professional manner no matter what the 
circumstances, you usually engender respect for yourself and your position.

Professionalism includes being proactive -- if a deadline is at risk, it 
doesn't matter whether it's a school assignment deadline or a 
documentation deadline, learning how to handle that is part of the job. 
Working with difficult people? We throw that at them too, in plenty of 
group situations where students do not always get along like chums but a 
high pressure project still needs to be delivered. Our students also 
have to confront ambiguity of instructions, conflicting priorities, 
changing expectations, occasional lack of resources, and other 
situations that mirror what they'll find in the workplace. Hands on 
education means exactly that -- they're at the wheel going very fast and 
they'd better learn to steer. The obstacles occur not because we're 
disorganized but because a) it's life, and b) we build in challenges 
that allow them to see what can occur when real world projects go awry.

Granted, our program is post-graduate so students are expected to have 
some degree of maturity upon admission, but they still could be right 
out of university with no work experience. Mostly I tell them to trust 
themselves, have confidence in the skills that they've learned, and to 
take charge of their work assignments. In the 11 years we've been 
graduating technical communicators, our students have turned out to be 
pretty successful at doing that. Professionalism certainly can be taught.
--Beth

Beth Agnew, Professor
Co-ordinator, Technical Communication Program
Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology
Toronto, ON

Ned Bedinger wrote:
> Maybe someone from a tech writing program will weigh in about how 
> toinstill the Professional identity in technical writers, but to me, the 
> sort of Professionalism that copes effectively with vagaries of the tech 
> writing job environment isn't classroom learning, or if it is, it would 
> be something for an Outward Bound kind of program to teach: Survival 
> Skills as Professional Values.