My right to write choose the future!

People who comment on the critical issues that our society faces are commonly rebutted with the suggestion that they are not qualified to make those comments. In choose the future! I comment on a wide range of subject that come from the disciplines of economics, demographics, agriculture, engineering, and many others, and I am not qualified in any of these areas.

 

In fact I am a technical writer; technical writers are like journalists, in that they research and analyse the subject matter that they are writing about, and then organise it and present it in a manner that makes it as easy as possible for the reader to understand. Technical writers and journalist don’t create any new information: they analyse information that is created by subject matter experts, who do primary research to create new information. Inevitably, many technical writers and journalists become specialist by becoming particularly knowledgeable in a discipline, but a good technical writer must, by necessity, be able to research, analyse and report on any subject.

 

There is no need to be appropriately qualified in a discipline to analyse information from that discipline and comment on it; only the people who perform the fundamental research that generates the data and who produce the information need to be specifically qualified.

 

Certainly, a person is likely to have a better grasp of the analytical process if he or she is trained as a scientist, any sort of scientist, because what is required for analysis is a general application of the scientific method, but really any clear-thinking and logical person can do it.  The job of a writer is to ensure that the information they analyse comes from a reliable and qualified source and to then present that information accurately and conmprehensibly.