Re: Techwriting and Personality

Subject: Re: Techwriting and Personality
From: Sandy Harris <sandy -at- storm -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 18:25:07 -0400

Chantel Brathwaite wrote:
>
> ... I read that technical writing is a good career fit for those of writers with
> the ISTJ personality type (this is Myer's Briggs by the way).

Was that based on some analysis, like x% of tech writers have that profile vs.
only y% of the population at large? If so, then it is interesting data and we
might want to discover why that would be so.

If not, I cannot see much reason to consider it interesting speculation.

> I found that to be interesting since my type is somewhere
> between INFP and ENFP -- the exact opposite of ISTJ. Any thoughts on the
> validity of the ISTJ-techwriting claim?

>From the Jargon File's Appendix C, "A Portrait of J Random Hacker":
http://tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/Personality-Characteristics.html

> In terms of Myers-Briggs and equivalent psychometric systems, hackerdom appears
> to concentrate the relatively rare INTJ and INTP types; that is, introverted,
> intuitive, and thinker types (as opposed to the extroverted-sensate personalities
> that predominate in the mainstream culture). ENT[JP] types are also concentrated
> among hackers but are in a minority.

My guess would be that most of the people I work with have NT as the middle two
letters of their Myers-Briggs type, but then most of them are hackers.

As for tech writers, I'm not sure. Certainly a wide range of types can succeed
in the field, and different tech writing jobs would suit different people.

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