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Re: engineers

Subject: Re: engineers
From: Ellen Hladky <ehladky -at- COSMOCOM -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:36:39 -0400

I've been a tech writer, senior tech writer, and/or tech pubs manager for about 12 years and I hate to agree, but there are quite a few tech writers who are "useless, overpaid, and

not altogether capable".

Now I know that there are good and bad in every profession (half of all doctors graduated at the bottom of their medical class), but I've seen more bad than good technical writers.

For one thing, I've seen technical writers who could barely write (ironically many went on to be successful contractors) or weren't the slightest bit technical.  I've also seen technical writers who expected the engineers to do all the work for them so that they were really glorified desktop publishers.  I've seen far too many technical writers who were so disorganized in their writing that their manuals made no sense.  I've even seen technical writers who wrote such grandiose text, that their manuals were overly bloated and virtually useless.

Maybe the problem is poor training.  There aren't many academic programs for tech writers in my area.  Maybe it's a profession that has grown so quickly, that to fill positions, we took less than qualified people with hopes that we could train then.  Maybe there are too many people who just assume ours is an 'easy' job and figure they can do it too.

I don't know exactly what the problem is, but IMHO there are a lot of lousy technical writers out there.

Let the flaming begin...

Ellen Hladky
Training and Documentation Manager
CosmoCom, Inc.

-----
> Hello, everyone! This is my first post to the list, so please be kind.
> I am wondering if anyone can tell me the current state of the
> relationship
> between writers and the esteemed wizards, engineers, in
> industry. I ask because
> I work with a smart young woman, graduating soon with a
> degree in Computer
> Engineering. Yesterday she ranted on Tech Writers as
> "useless, overpaid, and
> not altogether capable" of understanding what she and her
> peers do. Is this
> typical? Or is this simply the musings of a naive young
> intellect, without
> exposure to the real world? Just hoping it's different in real life.
>
> Graham Fredrickson

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