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Re: "Surviving the Dying Career of Technical Writing"
Subject:Re: "Surviving the Dying Career of Technical Writing" From:David Farbey <david -at- farbey -dot- co -dot- uk> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 22 Mar 2016 08:24:34 +0000
I agree with the criticisms of the tone of the article that have already
been expressed. There were too many generalisations and no attempt to
introduce any evidence, even anecdotal evidence, to back up the statements
being made. For example, if you mention "a recent survey" as a
justification for your assertions you need to provide a link or a reference
to the source. The only source mentioned in their references is a
five-year-old personal blog contribution, and it is not really relevant to
the article.
However...
In the UK the technical writing profession is indeed facing challenges, but
they are very different from the ones mentioned in the article. On the
supply side, there are limited training opportunities, and no academic
courses at all. The ISTC (http://www.istc.org.uk/) is looking for ways of
addressing this deficit, by accrediting courses offered by private
providers, running a mentoring scheme for new entrants to the profession,
and encouraging members to engage in lifelong learning through our
outputs-focussed CPD scheme. (Disclosure - I'm on the ISTC Council and
these three activities come under my remit.) On the demand side, fewer
companies appear to be hiring technical writers, and third party
non-specialist recruitment agencies often don't understand that a technical
writer doesn't necessarily need to be an expert programmer or engineer to
be the best person for the job.
Interestingly, the special focus theme for this year's TCUK conference that
takes place in September is "From Novice to Expert â Writing Your Career
Path as a Technical Communicator" and the deadline for submitting your
speaking proposals is Thursday 31st March 2016 ( http://technicalcommunicationuk.com/index.php/call-for-proposals-tcuk-2016)
But maybe the authors do have a point? I now work as a technical consultant
for a financial services company. My job involves writing about technology,
but it isn't "technical writing". I haven't moved to Thailand, though, I'm
still in London.
Regards,
David
David Farbey - david -at- farbey -dot- co -dot- uk
Mobile 07538 420 800
Twitter @dfarb http://about.me/davidfarbey
On 22 March 2016 at 00:27, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:
> Looking back on my manager days, I would much rather build a pubs team
> from a bunch of programmers, lab or service techs who could string words
> together into coherent paragraphs and support them with a good editor and
> illustrator than from people educated as "one-person pubs teams" with no
> technical knowledge. Producing usable docs happens much more smoothly when
> the writers know the tech and are open to an editor's input on their
> grammar and composition.
>
> And it's way easier to get engineers and other developers to talk to a
> writer who can look at the raw design and ask, "is it this, or is it that?"
> rather than "can you explain to me what this is and what it does?"
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
> On 3/21/2016 5:00 PM, Monique Semp wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I was hired as a "Senior" tech writer for my very first tech writing job
>> because a flexible (ok, maybe she was just desperate) tech pubs manager was
>> willing to hire a programmer who could write a coherent paragraph :-). And
>> happily, those were the days of companies having whole teams of writers, so
>> there were mentors available to teach me, and sufficient staff to be
>> productive while new writers were being trained.
>>
>
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