Re: "Technical Writers are Vital for Technology Startups"

[Lin Sims <ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I have to disagree with the following definition:

"Technical writers are one of two types of professionals. A) An Enterprise,
Full Stack Developer, or Systems Analyst that transitioned into a technical
writer. B) A journalism or communications professional that decided to
pursue a writing career in technology."

I am neither. My degree was in English with a writing concentration, and I
graduated intending to work as a technical writer, but the first job I had
that wasn't as supplemental personnel (read: office staff or production
word processing) was as a "quality control specialist", which meant I
compared an original document with the output of a production word
processor and made sure they matched. The job after that, however, was as a
technical writer who produced research papers on the telco industry, and
since then I've documented SOPs, software, circuit design, and now the
hardware and software used to track assets and people in medical
facilities.

Not only that, but I am *not *a member of the "gig economy". My preference,
and most of my employment, has been as a direct employee, not as a
contractor.

(Aside: what is being said in this sentence? "Also, it will cost double the
expense of one full-time writer on site than it is to hire a contractor." I
can't figure out if the writer is saying that full-time employees cost
twice as much as a contractor or vice-versa. I'm assuming the former, but
that sentence is quite clunky. And that's the technical term! Nor is it the
only sentence in the article that is difficult to parse.)

The writer lists quite a few benefits to employing a technical writer that
I do agree with, but there are a lot of underlying assumptions that I find
to be erroneous.

On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 2:49 PM Cardimon, Craig <ccardimon -at- m-s-g -dot- com> wrote:

> I found this article interesting. I hope you will, too.
>
>
> https://readwrite.com/2019/06/21/technical-writers-are-vital-for-technology-startups/
>
>
> Cordially,
> Craig Cardimon | Senior Technical Writer
>
>
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-- 
Lin Sims
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