The Expert as Novice: Reliving the Freshman Year
image from techwhirl.com For the past few weeks, I've been working part-time at an IT consulting & network integration firm in downtown Manhattan as part of the technical writing team (which is really just me & the existing technical writer). The thing is, even though I’m (somewhat) proficient at writing for academic purposes, technical writing is a whole new ball game. While my writing is clean and easy to read, I don’t always have the knowledge to write what needs to be written. It’s a bit confidence-shaking. I’m feeling like an intern rather than someone whose specialty is writing. Feeling like a beginner isn't easy, especially when you've devoted your entire adult life thus far to studying English and Communications, and even more so when as a writing instructor and writing consultant, I’m supposed to be an expert writer. It’s true that I can write for many contexts. Heck, I can even teach writing in the disciplines! But writing in the professional domain about ...