RE: How are Technical Writer's Perceived

["Stevenson, Rebecca" <Rebecca -dot- Stevenson -at- workscape -dot- com>]

--- lestatvampire39 -at- hotmail -dot- com wrote:

What an interesting account name. 

> Hello Everyone,
> 
> I am doing a paper on technical writers and require some input from 
> our side of the fence.  Basically, the angle is, how do we remove the 
> negative preconceptions that others have about us?

Maybe I've led a sheltered life, but I've never run into anyone who had a negative preconception of tech writers. At least not that they let on to me about. If they have them privately, I don't really care. :-)  

I *have* gotten, "And what does that mean?" from people, enough that when I introduce myself to non-techies I now say, "I write software manuals." 

> If an accountant is stereotyped as boring, a lawyer as money 
> grabbing, and a used car saleman as .....well we all know -  What is 
> the stereotype for a tech writer?

I think the vast majority of people outside our particular industries never think about technical writers at all.  If they do have a stereotype, they probably get it from Dilbert, in which case the engineers have it worse than we do....

Rebecca Stevenson
Technical Writer
Workscape, Inc.

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