Re: Worthless Tech Comm Degrees

[John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

I agree all, some, and none with various parts of
Andrew's post, but that's not my purpose of this
email, since what I may agree with or not agree with
is based on my experience and we all have different
experience.  However, there is one part that reminded
me on one of my pet peeves.

> ....and never a moment devoted to learning
> how to digest information.

I'll often be called on to instruct someone on how to
do something; maybe as basic as copy and paste, maybe
as complex as run an application.

It always amazes me that the person will concentrate
so heavily on writing down what is done step by step,
vs watching, asking questions, and getting to KNOW how
to do it.

User: John...how do I copy an email address from the
body of an email and paste it into the To: line
without retypiong it?"

John: "Easy. Watch. I'll repeat this several times, so
just get familiar with the process. Take your mouse,
position the pointer where you want it to start, hold
down the left button, and drag it across. Press Ctrl
and C keys at  the same time...What are you doing?"

User: I'm writing down what you said...let's
see...what was the step after I hold down the left
mouse button?"

How do people learn this way? What happens if they
need to copy the material at home and their notes are
at work? Doesn't anyone just learn things anymore?

OTOH, I get users that show me some software and about
5 minutes in, they'll ask "Aren't you going to write
any of this down?" 

"No..., why?

OK, I'm done.

=====
John Posada, Merck Research Laboratories
Sr Technical Writer, WinHelp and html
(work) john_posada -at- merck -dot- com - 732-594-0873
(pers) jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com - 732-291-7811
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
     Benjamin Franklin

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