Re: What to call us

["Cepek, Marta" <marta -at- M3ISYSTEMS -dot- QC -dot- CA>]

Re: whether we should be called technical writers, technical communicators,
document engineers, information engineers, etc.

I'm a technical writer.  On special occasions, like on my tax forms, I even
spell it with a capital T and a capital W.  My professional responsibilities
require that I do lots of things other than just write, but my primary
responsibilities involve writing, rewriting, and more writing.  I don't see
any advertisements in the Careers section of the newspaper for Technical
Communicators or Information Engineers; I see plenty for Technical Writers.
While I don't have any objection to my peers/colleagues adopting other
titles for the same work I do, I don't know who it *really* impresses.  I
know that when I meet a Sanitation Engineer, I'm dealing with a garbage man
with a vocabulary (or a thesaurus).

Perhaps it's because we change the subject when we're asked what we do...
We say what we *are* (technical writers, technical communicators, document
engineers, information engineers, etc.), when asked what we do, when we
should be telling people what we *do* (I can't speak for the rest of the
list, but I write software documentation).

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers!
Marta