Re: You're SUPPOSED to have good communication skills if you're a tech writer

Subject: Re: You're SUPPOSED to have good communication skills if you're a tech writer
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 21:31:39 -0700


Andrew Plato wrote:

If writing skills are so valuable (ie non-common, non-trivial), why doesn't the
marketplace then pay writers the same as doctors or programmers? Why has the
market overwhelmingly said tech writers with only writing skills will
consistently make less than their technically minded counterparts.
The market value for skills is only partly based on scarcity or importance. It's also based on the perception of those skills. And, let's face it, the perception of writing skills isn't very high. Industrialized societies like those in North America don't have literacy problems because literate skills are highly valued. The usual reaction is something like, "I learned to write in grade school, and I wrote a letter only last year to my second cousin in Indianapolis. What's hard about that?"

Teachers have much the same problem. What could be rarer or more valuable than a really inspiring teacher? As someone who has faced the horror of thirty surly eighteen year olds at 8AM, I know just enough to guess that, based on the frustration and dedication of their jobs, that elementary and high school teachers deserve to be the highest paid professionals in our society. Instead, they're probably the lowest. Even universities have a hard time retaining faculty because they can't pay them enough.

That said, it only makes sense to have as many job skills as possible - although even that can backfire, because you can seem too experienced.

--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield

"I denounce the heresy of Creationism
that would dismiss my mourning as sentimental
and allege a unique sentience divided us;
evolution would alow our parallel minds to meet
if love alone could not."



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References:
Re: You're SUPPOSED to have good communication skills if you're a tech writer: From: Andrew Plato

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