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Re: Motivation and satisfaction in technical writing
Subject:Re: Motivation and satisfaction in technical writing From:"Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 24 Jun 2003 10:17:40 -0700 (PDT)
Andrew Plato wrote:
> I too lost interest in tech writing about 3 years ago.
> I was sick and tired of the low pay, low respect, and
> low energy of most writers. Its hard to be motivated
> when there are so many bad tech writers and people don't
> respect what you do. And people don't respect what you do,
> because there is so many bad writers. Its like a sick little
> cycle of doom.
Andrew, I think a massive weeding-out process is underway right now and
has been for some time. But your sentiment is right on the money.
> Unfortunately, most of the people who are honestly good
> at tech writing, leave the profession and go on to more
> profitable things.
I think the low-skilled, low-motivated tech writers are the ones
getting out of the field (or being forced out). Frankly it's been a
while since I've worked with the kind of person you describe. Maybe
that's because I've been avoiding commodity doc-team staffing jobs.
I guess the difference is that when and if IT spending resumes, the
good TWs will still be TWs, and the bad TWs will be doing something
else.
On the last few teams I've worked on, a few of the developers or
engineers are actually better writers than a lot of tech writers,
consistent with my theory that smart people write well. Just like
typesetters were eliminated when tech writers started doing their own
DTP, so tech writers are eliminated when engineers do their own tech
writing.
Mike O.
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