Technical writing stereotypes
About 10 years ago, I mentioned to someone that I was working as a technical writer. Her reply, dripping with more than just a little dismay and disgust, was “How can you stand to write about computers?” More on my reply in a future post …
I’ve found that technical writing is one of the more misunderstood forms of writing, and one that is frequently looked down upon. Misconceptions and stereotypes abound, even among people in the field. Tom Johnson recently posted about what he terms the ten technical writing stereotypes. Tom’s also set up a survey in conjunction with this post. Even if you’re not a technical writer, why not complete the survey?
In case you’re wondering, Tom does more than technical writing. He’s a blogger (obviously), a podcaster, a presenter, and does a little WordPress consulting to boot. He’s even willing to take the occasional culinary risk, as I learned earlier this year. Talk about breaking free of the technical writer stereotype …