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> Are you saying that there are no skills common to all tech writers?
> Would you also say that there are no skills common to the great
> majority of tech writers, let's say 80%.
I would guess that maybe half of all technical writers can
write their way out of a paper bag. Perhaps 5-10% are "technical."
Probably no more than 15% have any formal training in editing,
though probably that many again get about the same results through
more idiosyncratic methods.
Heck, I'll bet that fewer than 80% of tech writers have "technical
writer" as their job title.
Technical writing is a field that encompasses writing, editing,
illustrating, desktop publishing, document production, product
testing, and reverse-engineering -- to various degrees in different
places. The people, tasks, and methods are extremely varied. The
only constant is the end result -- words in a row that are supposed
to inform you about the product.
Certification is based on the demonstrably false notion that you
can either (a) tell a person's worth in his profession by his
grades and coursework, or (b) tell a person's worth in his profession
by an examination by peers. Would anyone care to defend the justice
of either proposition? Do the people with the best GPAs win all
the Nobel Prizes? Do the best movies win all the Oscars?
Certification is the process of handing out official seals of
approval to some people who MAY be able to perform a task, and
denying it to others who MAY be unable to perform the task.
Here's a question for you: How much injustice is okay? Suppose
your certification procedure flunks 10% of the applicants, when
in fact they are okay, and passes 10% who are not. Is that okay?
Is 1% okay? 0.1%? Remember, you are attempting to create a
certification procedure that will be so widely accepted and believed
in that failing to acquire a certificate will ruin a writer's
career. Does your crystal ball have the fine polish necessary
to see the applicant's future to great precision? Can you judge
substance rather than style, even in obscure corners of the
industry where the manuals are written for use by arcan specialists?
(Can you tell a good gas chromatograph manual from a bad one, based
on the actual content rather than how prettily the sentences fall?)
-- Robert
--
Robert Plamondon, High-Tech Technical Writing, Inc.
36475 Norton Creek Road * Blodgett * Oregon * 97326
robert -at- plamondon -dot- com * (541) 453-5841 * Fax: (541) 453-4139 http://www.pioneer.net/~robertp
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