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Sherrill Fink wrote:
> 1. What students can learn now to help them prepare
Just for the raw hell of it, I'll suggest that students might want
to know that they're good writers before fooling around with
techcomm. Often it's reversed. You can be a good tech writer but a
fairly lame writer otherwise. The "tech writer" title has a way of
welcoming arch grammarians, prescriptivists, and other misguided
folks into a field that, by manufactured lights, is a kind of
wrench-turning and isn't writing at all as I understand it.
Relatively few tech writers are engaging enough to read. As long as
we're talking about student writers, I think it'd be nice if we
started to turn things right-side-out and say that if you can't
inform and attract a general audience, you may not be cut out for
the more specialized field of techcomm.
Another thing you might tell the kids: writers embed their command
of language in their work, they don't wear it.
And another: writers write. If you're writing, you're a Writer.
When you stop, you're not. Writers write.
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