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RE: Post on Technical Writing vs. Technical Communication
Subject:RE: Post on Technical Writing vs. Technical Communication From:"Steve Janoff (non-Celgene)" <sjanoff -at- celgene -dot- com> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net> Date:Fri, 6 Apr 2012 11:06:12 -0700
And because a lot of Technical Writers work in the general area of science, we can say we write "science fiction." :) I like that.
Gork
(formerly known as Steve)
-----Original Message-----
From: On Behalf Of Peter Neilson
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 5:40 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Post on Technical Writing vs. Technical Communication
Maybe not novels, but can any of us truly say that all the tech writing we
have done has been totally without fiction? We certainly have been
requested to produce fiction.
SME: "The feature isn't in there yet, but just say it is, and I'm sure
we'll try to have to code working for Beta test, or at least by the second
or third update after FCS. The fHgcalc() function will take two arguments,
the time in milliseconds and the area in meters. No, better make that
three. The voltage might be different."
In a case like that, whatever we write is bound to be fiction.
In times of great stress I have been known to produce poetry. Fortunately
most of it has been lost.
> The only problem with telling people you are a professional writer, from
> what I can see, is that they immediately assume you write novels, not
> procedures or instructions or user guides.
>
> Me: "Hi, I'm a professional writer."
> Them: "Wow! That's great! What books have you written?"
>
> Or
>
> Me: "Hi, I'm a technical writer."
> Them: "Oh. What's that?"
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