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Subject:Re: What Are Writing Skills? From:"Jerry Muelver" <jerry -at- hytext -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 21 Feb 2005 13:49:33 -0600
I can make an engineer into a writer a lot easier than I can make a writer
into an engineer. Communication is the eliciting of a response -- effective
communication is the eliciting of a desired response. Engineers understand
and respect the difference, and will gladly work to a spec that says, "Get
thus-and-so behavior out of the reader," whereas a capital-W Writer will
more often work for personal warm fuzzies and leave the consequences of
readers' behavior up to the readers themselves.
In the 60's, writing programmed instruction materials, we tested the hell
out of every sequence to make sure real live instruction was taking place,
and measured the progress with pretests and posttests. But now, even
managers think they're technical communicators once they learn how to pick a
page template or two in PowerPoint, hunt-and-peck a headline, and drag a
piece of clipart onto the page.
(Before anyone accuses me of being just a bitter old man, I better point out
that I'm not really all that old.)
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