One of my recent managers adamantly opposed the job title "Technical Writer." Instead, he insisted we be called "Documentation Specialists." Now, I've always felt the latter term was cryptic and self-important sounding; I preferred to be a plain technical writer. However, after he explained his reasoning, I began to see that the term "Technical Writer" doesn't really encompass all that we do.
Think about it from a purely descriptive standpoint. When people who have no idea what we do see that term, what do they think? "Technical" connotates, well, complicated information for a highly-educated audience. "Writer" limits the scope of our contribution to simply putting words on paper. Is that the whole of what we do? I think not.
We translate technical content into language that other audiences can understand. We bridge the gap between engineers/programmers and the rest of the world. That translation requires more than just the right words, though. Everything about our documents (or websites or videos or... actually, the choice of the appropriate medium is another facet of our contribution) helps convey the information.
We interview and research; in fact, we have to be experts at dealing with sometimes difficult people to get the information we need. We must be highly proficient with any number of software programs. We're photographers and graphic artists. We're desktop publishers. We're designers. We choose the layout, the colors, the fonts, the organization, the style guide... right down to the size and weight of the paper and the type of binding used to hold it all together. Some of us are even responsible for choosing a print shop, reviewing proofs and pushing the purchase order through.
In short, we do so much more than simply write technical materials. "Documentation Specialist" is a start, but even that title doesn't convey a true sense of everything we have to offer. I'll continue to think about a more appropriate title and let you know if I come up with one. Do YOU have any ideas?
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