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No, I'm NOT going to take the bait and start another diatribe ...
I have met a lot of people producing excellent technical pieces of technical
communication who would not _dream_ of calling themselves technical whatevers
(we can't even agree on the terminology, are we 'technical writers',
'technical authors', 'technical communicators', 'documentation engineers',
'information developers'?.....) and, on the other hand, I have met quite a
few people who use one of these titles but who are neither technical, nor
very literate.
Here in The Netherlands, it is a so-called "free" occupation, which means that
absolutely _anyone_ can claim to be one. Well, let them, I say. There is
absolutely no point in moaning about something you cannot change. WE know who
we are ... and, thankfully, the profession is small enough for almost everyone
to know who the real cowboys are ... 'fake' authors, fake doctors, anyone can
pretend ... but you can't fool _all_ the people _all_ the time.
As far as I am concerned (and it harks back to what was said earlier about
professionalism):
"a professional is someone who does his job well even when
he doesn't feel like it"
who really cares who or what you are, so long as your work does us all proud.
========== Translation's like a mistress; beautiful and unfaithful, ==========
========== or faithful and ugly .... ==========
Simon JJ North BA EngTech FISTC Quality Group, Software R&D
north -at- hgl -dot- signaal -dot- nl Hollandse Signaalapparaten BV
