Re: Certification Issues

["Wing, Michael J" <mjwing -at- INGR -dot- COM>]

>----------
>From:  Bill DuBay[SMTP:bill_dubay -at- phoenix -dot- com]
>
>Are you saying that there are no objective standards by which a writer's
>skill can be measured? If so, I am sure your answer would be of great
>interest to all editors, writing majors, and teachers of writing. They
>certainly jump through a lot of hoops trying to explain the standards of
>usage, structure,  grammar, style, rhetoric, precision, and clarity. You and
>I both can not only tell good technical writing from bad, but also what makes
>it good and bad in objective terms. Not only are language and writing skills
>testable, but also many other skills required by technical communicators.
>
>Bill DuBay

But as proven time and time again in this list, writing is only a subset
of the skills required in many technical writing jobs.  The remaining
skills required depend on the job at hand.  This is where the skills
branch out too widely.  Personally, I write only about 20% of the time.
The rest of the time, I develop programs for example code; develop
on-line help, HTML, and document designs; create file conversion macros
and programs; construct context-sensitivity schemes for reusable help;
teach an in-house VB automation lab, and so forth.

We do have writers in our department that mostly write.  We also have
others that do multimedia, usability testing, on-line training guides,
user guides, and so forth.  The skills and responsibilities in our
department alone are so diverse that I could not see how an adequate
means of certification could exist.  And we are all documenting a single
line of software products.  How do you extend it to hardware, insurance
and bank procedures, medical, legal, marcom, and so forth?

Despite being classified as a Technical Writer, writing is not the major
skill set that placed me into or advanced me in the profession.  To be
judged based on a set of skills that is not the major building block in
my duties is like testing all members of an orchestra on the violin.

Mike Wing

Michael Wing (mjwing -at- ingr -dot- com)
Principal Technical Writer
Intergraph Corporation; Huntsville, Alabama
http://www.ingr.com/iss/products/mapping/
(205) 730-7250

"But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good"
-- Paul (1 TH 5:21)

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