Re: What do you think?

["M. Dannenberg" <midannen -at- SI -dot- BOSCH -dot- DE>]

Nancy Hoft schrieb:

> Snipet One -- Question: Do you agree that the majority of technical
> communication is paper-based?
>
> "Still other instructors have consciously decided against using
> computers in their classrooms, and they have had good reasons for
> doing so.  First, they argue plausibly that the majority of technical
> communication in the workplace is still paper-based and that many
> students will be entering companies where they could certainly get by
> with little more than basic word processing skills.  Second, these
> instructors argue that their courses are intended to teach technical
> communication, not computer literacy."

Rubbish, rubbish and more rubbish. To be a technical writer these days
you need both solid computing skills, and a solid understanding of the
technology you're documenting, which in all likelyhood has to do with IT
as well. It is true that a lot of technical communication is
paper-based, i.e. printed. The process of creating tech. docs is,
however, 100% computerised in any company that isn't hopelessly
old-fashioned. People may get by with basic word-processing skills in
companies that have dedicated publishing departments, but in most
companies - especially small ones, the techwriter is expected to do some
or all of the layout work.

>
>
> Snipet Two -- Question:  What do you think of the word "forbidding"?
>
> "Computers and networks are, as Dale Spender (1995) notes, an
> environment of privilege-created by privileged white men and used
> mostly by them-and those environments are quite often forbidding to
> women and people from disadvantaged groups."

Seems O.K. to me.

> Snipet Three -- Do you think that your employers will be willing to
> train new hires in technical communication on how to use a computer
> to do their jobs?
>
> "It's true that many workplaces are still primarily paper-based, but
> does that mean we should ignore the enormous growth of electronic
> media-the journal Electronic Publishing estimates that by 2001, 30%
> of all workplace documents will be at least partially electronic
> (Romano, 1997)-in the hopes students will find an employer willing to
> train them?"

More rubbish. I haven't been in an office in the past five years that
didn't have a computer on more or less every desk. We are currently
experiencing a massive shift away from paper based, toward electronic
documents. The job of a good techwriter is to ease that process and make
it productive. Information these days has to be delivered on a varietey
of platforms, this creates a whole new set of problems that techwriters
have to deal with. IT-skills today are not anything particularly
remarkable, they are simply taken for granted, and not having them will
put you at a disadvantage in just about any white-collar job.

> What do you think?
>
I think these guys have been fast asleep for the past ten years, they're
just totally out of touch.

Mike


--
Mike Dannenberg
ETAS GmbH & Co.KG
midannen -at- si -dot- bosch -dot- de

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