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Subject:Re: Can I be a technical writer? From:Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 3 Mar 1994 09:03:27 CST
Cinty Li asks the four million dollar question:
|}
|} I am a journalist. Can I be a technical writer?
My answer: Ask yourself this. Do you know how to do something? Can
you tell someone else how to do it with simple, precise language? Can
you write it down so that, in your absense, someone else can do it
right?
That is basically what technical writing is. It sounds pretty simple,
but the more complex your topic, the better you have to know it, and
the more precise your explanation must be.
Know your topic.
Explain your topic simply, clearly, directly.
Do so in a professional environment under deadline.
Get paid for it.
Congratulations!
_______________________
/ ___ __/__\ \ / / _\ Steve Fouts
/___ \| | ___\ | / __\ sfouts -at- ellison -dot- ti -dot- com
/ / \ | \ / \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "Read over your compositions and, when you
meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out"
-- Samuel Johnson
