Don Bush's Intercom article

[w4ag]

All:

As one who has spent a career moving back and forth between academia and
industry and who once easily topped Mr. Bush's mythical $90k income, I
disagree with nearly every paragraph of his monotribe. I will agree that
most of the tech comm Journals publish articles that theorize to a fault,
but then that's what academics get rewarded for (see my chapter in the Mirel
& Spilka book; I don't want to repeat it here). I am actually more disturbed
about how wrong he is about current practice in the workplace, where even
entry-level people are expected to know how to do more than "keyboarding"
and light editing. I remember the age when Mr. Bush's observations might
have had a slight claim to accuracy, but that age is long gone.

Cheers,
Stan

Dr. Stan Dicks
Director, M. S in Technical Communication
Associate Professor
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8105
919 644-1382
stan_dicks at ncsu.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-stc-ac-277635 at lists.stc.org
[mailto:bounce-stc-ac-277635 at lists.stc.org] On Behalf Of Northcut, Kathryn
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 5:56 PM
To: stc-ac
Subject: [stc-ac] Don Bush's Intercom article


Colleagues:

Colleagues:

I've just read Don Bush's "The Friendly Editor" column of February 2007. I'm
distressed by the article, even though the proverbial shoe doesn't fit me.
With this sort of characterization of my work within publications that are
supposedly promoting the profession, we are doing ourselves a disservice to
say the least. At best, Bush is misinformed, and at worst, he's being
malicious. I'd send this message to Mr. Bush, but he lists only a snail mail
address, no email.

I'm interested in hearing how others are reacting or responding to what he's
said, and if I'm off base in thinking that a column published in TC reflects
the position of STC toward "academicians" (a term I loathe). Certainly there
are factions within STC trying to build bridges between university personnel
and workplaces, but are we swimming against the tide?

Although I could perhaps shrug this off, I told my students to join STC, and
they read this column, and they will take it to heart.

I'm concerned.

Kathy

Kathryn Northcut
Assistant Professor of Technical Communication
Department of English and Technical Communication
University of Missouri-Rolla
northcut at umr.edu









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