Re: Poll: Is technical writing a sellout or fallback career?

[quills -at- airmail -dot- net]

Few jobs that I have been at required you actually know what they 
were doing. Having basic knowledge however, is very important. My 
current job started because I listed XML as a knowledge that I 
possessed. I didn't elaborate that it was in documentation through 
XML. But XML is XML regardless of what you use it for.

Scott

At 10:45 AM -0400 8/20/08, Downing, David wrote:
>From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
>Subject: Re: Poll: Is technical writing a sellout or fallback career?
>
>Technical writing actually was my "first ambition."
>It was the first line of work I considered that wasn't
>preceded in my mind by "well, I guess I could be
>a...."  It was just that in order to be the kind of
>technical writer I chose to be I first needed to
>serve an apprenticeship as an engineer.
>
>------------------------------
>
>This is reminding my of the rude awakening I got when I first started
>looking around for tech writing jobs. I discovered that being a
>technical writer was not just about being able to write well. It was
>also about being an expert in a particular subject area. I suppose I
>should have know that. In fact, I remember my dad saying, "I TOLD you
>that was how it would be." But since the program I went through
>emphasized the ACT of writing, it downplayed the idea of knowing the
>subject matter. Fortunately, I found a position that let you learn on
>the job.
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