Re: CHAT Technical Writing Article

[Gurudutt Kamath/Technical Writing Centre <guruk -at- GIASBM01 -dot- VSNL -dot- NET -dot- IN>]

Just as an aside I would like to add that the article was written in
October when I had just got an Internet account and had joined this
wonderful list. If I wrote that article today, I would regard technical
writers from US, Israel, Canada, Denmark, etc as Gods. I would also add
that subscribing to such a list is education by email!

Can you believe it, someone really has that designation in a US Company:
Technical Poet. The same company, I think, won some documentation awards
for their user manuals.  This company, I believe, prepared the user manual
with the idea that someone should curl up in bed and read it (because it
was so interesting!) Apparently, they succeeded.

In India, in many companies technical writers are paid more than
programmers.  Where technical writing is respected, they are treated with
great honour.  However, many companies do not know about technical
writing. Also, only two universities have a program on technical
writing. I do not know how good or comprehensive they are.

I take this opportunity to thank everyone for reading the article and
also for sending me valuable responses.

(I have quickly put up the article at

http://members.tripod.com/~Kamath/article.htm

for those who could not read it due to MIME encoding or other problems.)

Guru
Technical Writing Centre, Mumbai (Bombay), India


"I edit_s_ users manuals." "i rights them 2."
(guruk -at- giasbm01 -dot- vsnl -dot- net -dot- in)
(http://members.tripod.com/~Kamath/index.html)
(Voice:91-22-886 21 83 Pager: 9624-215 911)

On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, Sella Rush wrote:

> My favorite reference was to U.S. tech writers being seen as "Technical
> Poets."  Isn't that great?  (I have a poet friend who'd keel over at
> this thought--he's seen my poetry.)