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The point that any programmer/analyst/engineer who writes is not
necessarily a qualified technical writer is true. However, I don't
feel that, unless a tech writer has a specific writing degree, he/she
is not qualified to be one. And I certainly don't think that a person
who has a writing degree should feel insulted that some tech writers
do not. As a matter of fact, those of us who do not have that writing
degree should probably feel insulted at the implication that they are
inferior to those who do.
While I am not one of the "those of us," i.e., while I do have a
degree in English and Journalism, I sure had no idea when I was in
college that I'd be a tech writer. I didn't do it on purpose. For
me, this career was purely accidental. And so with many other tech
writers. But accidental tech writers should not be an insult to
nonaccidental tech writers.
Frankly, just about everything that's happened in my life since high
school has been an accident. So what?
