RE: When the term "Technical Writer" just doesn't cut it

["Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- com>]

I wrote:
> > One thing I'd like to stress again for the benefit of people
> > new to this profession is that a good technical [MW>] 
>> communications solution may or may not involve "writing".


Lauren wrote:
> Well, no, it doesn't always involve writing; just as other forms of
> communication do not involve writing.  In fact, there are forms of
> communication, like communicating with one's family, that rarely involve
> writing.

I 'm sure that's widely understood. Even "not communicating" can be
communicating, as every married couple probably knows.

What is less widely understood is that too often "technical writers" take
the job title too literally (plenty of evidence for that in this forum over
the past ten years or so), and also that the term "technical writer" itself
has become obsolescent since the emergence of desktop publishing and related
technologies. From an employability perspective, we may actually be doing
ourselves a disservice by clinging so stubbornly to it.

--
Mike

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