Re: Why so few medical techwriters

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Sean Hower" <hokumhome -at- freehomepage -dot- com>
> 
> >So basically, if someone has a lot of
> experience 
> in technical writing, your opinion is that they would better be served by
> picking 
> up an education in the field they write to write in? 


Reading this thread, I suddenly realized that an important distinction seems to
have disappeared in most people's minds.

Just for the record, let me state: education is not training. The two can
overlap, but in the end, they are not the same thing.

Education is about developing your mind, and learning to appreciate art and
science. It's about gaining a larger perspective by learning about both your
culture and other ones. Training is about learning what you need to do know to
fill a role or to do a set of tasks.

The point of making the distinction isn't to suggest that one is preferable to
the other. Both can be useful.

However, I would suggest that people who are looking for training shouldn't
deceive themselves that they are getting an education. They may attend an
educational institute, and they may even take classes with people who are being
educated, but they are doing something very different in focus and scope than
getting an education. You are only deceiving and cheating yourself if you
imagine otherwise. If you imagine that you are educated when you are only
trained, then you are missing a chance to develop your mind - and may never know
what you are missing.

(The same is true, of course, in reverse. You can get an education, and still
not have any training, as countless English majors turned tech-writer can
testify, including me. However, that's not a viewpoint being raised in this
discussion, so I'm not emphasizing it).

-- 
Bruce Byfield 

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