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In 1980, on the strength of a Bachelor's Degree in English and a couple years' experience teaching teenagers how to program their Radio Shack TRS-80s, I got my first job as a technical writer, for the company that more-or-less invented modern Technical Writing.
For the next 30-odd years, I made my living as a writer, editor, or technical communicator. Sometimes my career seemed as solid as rock; sometimes it felt as risky as crossing the Ohio River by jumping from ice flow to ice flow. Though most of my experience was in computer documentation, I also got to write about history and literature, and hundreds of other topics. Now that I'm within a few years of putting the day job out to pasture, I can't help thinking about all the great and goofy experience I've had over the years. And since I am a writer, it seems natural to commit some o the crazier experiences to text.
But whoever you are, hopefully you'll find it entertaining. The contents are more-or-less chronological, starting in the late 1960s and going up to present day, although I only knew about the periods before 1980 as an historian and a friend of several "old-timers" who loved telling "war stories." In addition, not all periods are covered equally. Although the sections are divided largely by the state of technical writing during the events being described, they're really about what it was like for me to work in the industry at that time. If you can relate to any of what I've written, e-mail me and let me know. If you have any responses, additions, or criticisms, e-mail me with those, too. I plan on putting a reader response section on every page eventually. In the meantime, enjoy! Click here to go to The Birth of Modern Technical Writing Looking forward to your suggestions, additions, criticisms, or even good-paying work you care to send me, I remain, Paul Race
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Note: Breakthrough CommunicationsTM, Family Garden TrainsTM, Garden Train StoreTM, Big Christmas TrainsTM, BIG Indoor TrainsTM, BIG Train StoreTM, and Trains-N-TownsTM are trademarks of Breakthrough Communications (www.btcomm.com). All information, data, text, and illustrations on this web site are Copyright (c) 1995, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 by Paul D. Race. Reuse or republication without prior written permission is specifically
forbidden.
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