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----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: October 10, 2003 12:14 PM
Subject: Re: credibility (longish but IMO worth reading)
>
> I don't know how many people on this list have had careers in
> other fields as well as technical writing, but having had a few
> over the course of my working life (drafter, design engineer,
> test engineer, product support engineer, tech writer, publications
> manager), I can tell you that these complaints apply to some
> extent to just about every one of them, not to mention all the
> occupations I've not had but have had acquaintances in. This
> is pretty much a generic description of of life in the modern
> world, don't you think?
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
But how many will place something like this on the *first content page* of one
of its journals?
"It bothers me when the technical communication profession gets ignored.
Whether it's a story in the popular media that overlooks us, the failure of
professionals in other fields to take advantage of the skills we have to
offer, or our own ineffectuality in representing what we have to offer, I get
upset when my profession doesn't receive the credit it deserves. To be
unnoticed or passed over is to be voiceless, invisible, ignored.
"NO VOICE.
"A while back, as I was paging through _USA today_ (sic), I came across an
article by Donna Rosato titled "On-line manuals have pros, cons" (2 June 2003,
p. 3E). It was an innocuous article, a filler piece in a special section on
electronics. What I found astonishing about the article was the fact that 50
years after the founding of our Society, neither the technical communication
profession nor STC was mentioned in the piece, and none of the six individuals
wh served as sources for the story had any connection to our field. No one
spoke for us in that article, and because we were voiceless, we lost an
opportunity to make our profession visible to millions of readers."
<any errors are due to my typing>
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