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RE: Technical writer survey: What should we really call ourselves?
Subject:RE: Technical writer survey: What should we really call ourselves? From:"Karen Field Carroll" <kfcarroll -at- cox -dot- net> To:"'TechWr-L'" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:56:50 -0700
To me, calling ourselves things like "information developers," "information
architects," or even the clunky "technical communicators" belies a
fundamental principle of our profession: to make the complex simple.
"Technical writer" is (at last) a term most non-tech writers "get," and the
other terms just make us sound pretentious and desperate to be seen on equal
footing with our IT cohorts, the developers, qa analysts, etc.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+kfcarroll=cox -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+kfcarroll=cox -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of
Gene Kim-Eng
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 10:30 AM
To: TechWr-L
Subject: Re: Technical writer survey: What should we really call ourselves?
During the dotcom years, various tech writer forums I attended were often
rife
with "what should we call ourselves?" discussions, mostly initiated by
people
who had come to the conclusion that new delivery methods (online,
multimedia, UI
embedding, etc.) had somehow become more important as defining
characteristics
of "the profession" than "technical" and "writing." In more recent times I
have
heard less of this, and had begun to think that these "the medium is more
important than the message" folks had left along with the Pets.com sock
puppet,
but apparently I need to rethink that perception.
Gene Kim-Eng
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave C" <davec2468 -at- aim -dot- com>
> But mostly I write for the print or electronically-distributed media,
> so Technical Writer, then, is a badge worn proudly and appropriately.
>
> Why fix what's not broken?
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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