[SystemSafety] Transcending the bounds of sub-literacy

[C. Michael Holloway]

On 2018-10-24 (04.08.04), olwen at phaedsys.com wrote:
> On the other hand, I suspect that most people who do technical 
> subjects at school do so, at least in part, because they are 
> uncomfortable in the more touchy-feely area of language. ...
I suspect that many people who do technical subjects at school do so, at 
least in part, because they are incapable of understanding the 
touchy-feely area of language. The old joke about law being the 
profession for really smart people who are bad at math is mostly true. 
Equally true is the equivalent but less well-known joke: "Engineering is 
the profession for really smart people who are bad at language."
> IMO courses in writing clear technical English (or whatever language 
> you use) should be mandatory and have to be passed in all engineering 
> degrees and equivalent professional training. ...
Writing well is as much of a skill as doing advanced mathematics well.  
As the famous philosopher Eeyore once said, "We can't all, and some of 
us don't.  That's all there is to it." [Milne, A. A. 1928.///Winnie the 
Pooh/. London: Methuen & Co, Ltd.]

In my opinion, the solution is not in trying to teach excellent 
engineers to be good (or even competent) writers, but in resurrecting 
the positions of technical writer  and technical editors in all 
engineering departments and staffing the positions with language 
majors.  Also, no standard or guidance document should ever be published 
without a superb technical editor having the final say on the text.

I could, but won't, share many anecdotes about my experiences on RTCA 
committees. A collection of originally well-written sentences mangled 
into incomprehensible gibberish would fill several hundred pages. Had I 
won last night's Mega-Millions lottery, I might have compiled such a 
collection and sought a publisher for it.

-- 

All the best,
*C. Michael Holloway* (cMh)
Senior Research Computer Engineer
NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA USA
bit.ly/cmhpapers <http://bit.ly/cmhpapers>

Verba volant, scripta manent
spoken words fly away, written words remain

(The words in this message are mine alone;
neither blame nor credit NASA for them.)

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman/private/systemsafety/attachments/20181024/a784ccf0/attachment.html>