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I've tried to stay out of this discussion, because I've seen great technical
writers who had little or no formal training and thus, no certification, and
absolutely lousy writers who had master degrees. I've hired the former and
terminated the latter. I don't have any use for "writers" who simply rehash
the engineer's input and tell the readers what to do. I have the upmost
respect for writers who dig deeper and tell the readers not only what to do,
but how to do it. I'm not sure how a certification program will weed out
those who say they are writers, from those that can really write. Early in
my management career, I was burned by a few of the writer wannabes who had
great resumes and good references, yet were lost when it came to developing
documentation from scratch on highly technical hardware/software products.
What they lacked in ability, they made up for in sales techniques. So, my
opinion is that certification can be used to distort a potential employee's
ability as much as keyword loading has been used in the past to get through
automated HR systems. The writers still has to be able to write and with the
wide variety of technical writing subjects, I'm not sure how certification
is going to help weed out those that can from those that say they can.
Al Geist
Technical Communicator, Help, Web Design, Video, Photography
Office/Msg: 802-872-9190
Cell: 802-578-3964
E-mail: al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com
Website: www.geistassociates.com
See Also:
Fine Art Photography
Website: www.geistarts.com
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