Re: A Tech Writer's Background

[Stuart Selber <sselber -at- CRAFT -dot- CAMP -dot- CLARKSON -dot- EDU>]

On Tue, 29 Aug 1995, Connie Winch wrote:
> The opinion:  Salespeople sell, Programmers program, Engineers
> engineer.  And Writers write.  The technical information that
> a Technical Writer needs to know can be learned.

Although I agree with Connie that we bring special expertise to the
documentation mix, perhaps these kinds of hard disciplinary lines are
ultimately limiting (for ourselves in terms of job responsibilities and
for the field in terms of creating new approaches and products). On rare
occasions, we learn from technical folks--structured programming has
influenced our thinking about document design and modularity, for
instance. And in rarer cases they listen to and learn from
us--perhaps about user-centered design practices or the rhetorical
dimensions of planning (users, goals, time/space conditions, and so on).

These instances, of course, should be much less rare. Besides, I think
most of us want to influence products beyond their supporting
documentation. We probably need to consider interdisciplinary approaches
if we hope to contribute more substantialy. The us/them binary is not
only tired but pretty useless on many levels. I haven't met a clear
thinker in the computer industry yet who was *not* both comfortable
with technology and sensitive to rhetorical conditions and the range of
forces--organizational (social), political, and economic--that influence
their work and how their company conducts business. Seems like we should
move beyond the historically limited idea of technical writer.

Stuart
________________
Stuart A. Selber
Department of Technical Communications
Clarkson University
Potsdam, New York 13699-5760
315-268-6450 (voice)
315-268-6485 (fax)
sselber -at- craft -dot- camp -dot- clarkson -dot- edu