Re: Writers job description/definition

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

My experience a long time ago in the far, far away galaxy of 
aerospace was that the majority of technical writers were former 
engineers, many of whom could take one look at a wet-behind-
the-ears engineer's description of a "new" design proposal and 
point him to the records for an almost identical attempt 20 years 
earlier that had produced a spectacular exploding rocket aerial 
lightshow, then tell him how the problem had eventually been
fixed.  The first time I ever met a tech writer who did not have a
technical background was in the early 90's at my first "high tech" 
(semiconductor) company, and they hired me because their 
"non-technical technical writers" were failing to grasp the tech 
of their new product line.  

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>
> In another galaxy far, far away, when most tech writers worked in places
> like aerospace, apparently the engineers provided all or almost all of the
> info and the writers edited it and made it look nice. (I'm not slamming any
> one here, this is what I've been told by people who worked in the industry
> for 30 or 40 years. YMMV)

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