Entry Level Technical Writer - Contract - Moorpark, CA

[Rene Stephenson]

That's still true in some regions. Not all universities offer any training toward technical writing, and some of the ones locally that do are really only teaching basic grammar and writing business letter. It would appear that the department head there has no clue what tech writing is, or that syllabus would be returned for heavy revision!
   
  Among candidates with no direct tech writing experience and short job histories, I have found that candidates who majored in literature or English rhetoric/composition (or other field that requires a lot of writing that's graded by prof's who know how to write well) and minored in a technical field such as computer science, a type of engineering, or other scientific field -- are the candidates who seem to settle in to the odd mix of skills required in our field. I also had a good experience with someone whose BS was in biology and minored in journalism, and her family background was a very goal-oriented. As a writer, she was detail-oriented and adjusted well to the demands of timelines and multiple overlapping deadlines, but she didn't seem to get stuck in the conundrum of perfectionism that plagues some.
   
  Rene

Steve Rickaby <srickaby at wordmongers.demon.co.uk> wrote:
  At 12:40 -0700 15/5/07, Rene Stephenson wrote:

However, about half the tech writers I know never formally trained as tech writers - although all are of graduate level. One reason for this is that for my generation there wasn't much in the way of formal courses for tech writers when we were at college - I only first heard about the profession in the late 80s.

-- 
Steve