atw: Re: XML - a requirement for a TechWriter looking forwork? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
- From: Howard.Silcock@xxxxxxxxxxx
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:00:44 +1000
This discussion just demonstrates what I was saying in my talk at the ASTC
(NSW) conference last year - that technical communication is a vaguely
specified group of skills. One person may expect a technical communicator
just to tweak the formatting on documents and pick up the typos. Another
will expect him or her to be expert at turning complex ideas into clear
English. Yet another will be looking for someone who knows about web
design or can use Photoshop or CorelDraw. And so on.
The survey on which I based my talk (
http://members.iinet.net.au/~howard.silcock/skillsresults.html) showed
that almost everyone agreed, as you'd expect, that a technical
communicator needs to be skilled in spelling and grammar. But beyond that
there was a wide range of expectations.
So is XML something you should expect a technical communicator to know
about, either superficially or in depth? Or will it soon be? It all
depends on who you're talking to.
I think it would be really useful to come up with some memorable terms to
distinguish the different varieties of technical communicator. How can we
come up with plans for accreditation for such an ill-defined profession?
Howard
Hedley Finger <hfinger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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atw: Re: XML - a requirement for a TechWriter looking forwork?
[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Stephen:
I think some of you are confusing the art of writing with the act of
publishing.
Art is what novelists do. Craft is what technical writers do.
Good writing is about transmitting ideas and concepts from one human brain
into others with ease and grace. It is a talent that in many ways can't
be
Are you confusing the art of composing -- arranging the thought to be
communicated -- with writing: recording it with a hammer and chisel,
quill, Word, XML or some other recording tool. *^)
Can flick the drafts to some IT nerd to format, publish etc.
Thank you, Stephen, for clarifying my identity confusion. Apparently, in
the 1960s before IT had even been invented, as a production editor at
Reader's Digest, publisher and book editor at Rigby and Pan Macmillan,
editor at ACER, I was an IT nerd. Well, that sorts that out. And I had
been wondering all this time ...
Funny thing how once some programming tool has been learned, it becomes
part of a snobbish upmanship process. There was a time when DOS knowers
stuck it up Mac users for clicking icons instead of writing
command code. The XML argument is much the same.
May le Grand Fromage arrange that in your next job you will be the only
technical writer -- no IT nerds to format you thoughts and will be asked
to document the API of an application written in C++, this documentation
to be recorded in XHTML using Notepad.
I think we have all been required to learn a bit more of technology than
we wanted to throughout our technical writing careers, and few of us have
had the luxury of just writing. And if you bent is towards design and
presentation, it doesn't hurt to know about usable book or web design,
which may require you to learn how to build a template in FrameMaker or a
web site design in Dreamweaver and TopStyle.
Regards,
Hedley
--
Hedley Finger
28 Regent Street Camberwell VIC 3124 Australia
Tel. +61 3 9809 1229 Fax. (call phone first)
Mob. (cell) +61 412 461 558
Email. "Hedley Finger" <hfinger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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