The Pre-Professional Conference

Last Thursday the school hosted a conference to address different areas in the English department. As a "professional writing emphasis", I went to Tom Johnson's presentation on technical writing. Tom Johnson, technical writer for the LDS church and author of the idratherbewriting.com, came to destroy the myths on technical writing.

Boredom Myths of Technical Writing
It stifles creativity
Writers feel like they've "sold out"
They do a lot of writing
They're second class members of IT departments
They have to know a lot of different computer programs
You have to have a job in communication to get a job in communication

So, they've not sold out because the job is only 9-5, it allows plenty of time to do other things, they use photos and videos as well as writing, and he was able to jump from teaching and copy editing to technical writing, but I'm still not convinced on all of these.

Well, at the end he gave us a list of computer programs to know (Ich! Computers and I do not get along well.) which verified rather than dismissed the computer myth and, while I may no longer consider technical writing as the end of the world, I still will plow straight ahead to editing novels (because I probably would feel like I've sold out).