| > Summary: Engineers need copyrighting and sales training as well. Waaait. Your comment essentially established two things: that journalists receive training on how to write properly, and that successful salesy type know how to bullshit their audience to get what their want. I think the conclusion doesn't follow. Observe that journalists universally don't apply their writing training - in fact, modern news reporting is one of the worst kind of writing out there, with the lede buried under 30 meters of gravel, and spread on a hectare of land (we call it clickbait only when headline is manipulative). So this shows your training matters little if incentives on the job are in total opposition to it. As for the sales angle, commercial copywriting isn't exactly a paragon of clarity either. Effectiveness in sales isn't measured in how clearly you communicated costs and benefits, but how excitingly you communicated the benefits, and how effectively you've hidden the drawbacks. Engineering communication shouldn't be manipulative like this. The way I see it, many engineers could use some communication training, but it should be focused at presenting things clearly and truthfully, and on effectively ELI5-ing things to managers. But beyond that, incentives within organization needs to be adjusted, because it's hard to get an engineer to explain things clearly when their job depends on them not doing it. |
There are technical communications courses, in fact, it's a required course at Cornell Engineering. Agreed, it's not at all the same as copyrighting or journalism, but the general level of technical communication is so poor, that even courses in those would be an improvement.