Re: Undergrad Tech Writing Students

["Laurel Lynam, SPIE" <LAUREL -at- MOM -dot- SPIE -dot- ORG>]

Hi!

In reply to this and the one before it:

>Speaking of career choices: how is technical writing as a source
>of bread and butter?  Is it interesting and rewarding?  How did
>you folks happen into the field?  Peace, David Tillyer CCNY

I find e-mail wonderful.  We have had it in our office since
before I started 3+ years ago.  It is a great way to communicate
and not have to interrupt people as they are working.  It also
lets them have a chance to think about or research an answer
before getting back to you.  Picking up the telephone and asking
them puts them on the spot unless they have the presence of mind
to say "Let me think about that and I'll get back to you".  From
experience I know this is a habit you have to develop.  We are
all more likely to try to answer a spoken question at once than
to stop and wait until we have had time to ponder it.

As for e-mail to the great outside -- WOW --!  It is a bit
intimidating at first....there is SO much there.  Learning to
filter and not feel like you are going to miss something
important is the first step.  Also, when you work in a small
office and some people have been there forever and their opinion
has been the Last Word, it is nice to be able to get other views
on a subject from people not directly involved in the "politics".
So I guess I would say that it opens your horizons and makes you
know you don't work in a vacuum.

Lists like this are more educational in some respects than books
or videos or tv specials because it is interactive and
spontaneous, people seem to be honest about expressing "This is
my opinion" or I found this in article such and so, you can read
it too.  You feel the information is more trustworthy....unlike
the media right now, where it seems like they have hidden
agendas.

This is getting pretty wordy, so I will quit by saying I do
"technical writing" more as a small part of my job.  I write
handouts for users about software we buy or that our programmers
write for some specific purpose [such as sending faxes from the
VAX terminal].  I also write training modules that I use as
outlines when I am training new employees.  I worked in the
computer center at college, helping users and helping to rewrite
the manual the computer center workers referred to....that is the
experience I had to get this job.  My degree was in Industrial
Technology and since no one ever knows what that means, it
applied to this position...(;-).

Hope you students found some info of use here,

Laurel Lynam
Computer Support, SPIE - The Society for Optical Engineering
laurel -at- mom -dot- spie -dot- org