Dr. Jackie Damrau is a Fellow of STC, the Book Review Editor of the Technical Communication journal, and is Co-Chair of 2021–2022 Education Committee.

Jackie is also a Sr. Business Analyst at Cathedral Plumbing, assigned to a sister company MiViewIS to write user stories and documents for a commercial home builder application related to the plumbing industry. In the course of her lengthy career, Jackie has encountered imposter syndrome and will share with you findings from her personal research.

In her spare time, Jackie enjoys raising her two grandchildren and reading murder mysteries along with other esoteric subjects.

Connect with her on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/jackiedamrau.

Are You an Expert or an Imposter? Do You Know the Symptoms?

Syndromes exist for everything. We are human; we try to self-diagnose to our own detriment. As a technical communicator, we often face times in our careers when we feel like an expert and times when we are truly acting as an imposter or impostor. These are real syndromes, believe it or not.

The Expert Syndrome is when a person “thinks they understand topics deeply or do things well”, when they may not (Bergells). The Imposter Syndrome is a “psychological pattern in which someone questions their skills, talents, or qualifications and becomes afraid of being exposed as a ‘fraud’” (Stanislaus).

This session will give you an overview into this with actionable steps from others on how to recognize and conquer the “imposter within”.

In this session, attendees will learn:

• Differences between Expert and Imposter Syndromes
• Explore at a high-level the signs of both syndromes
• Discover actionable steps to take to recognize and conquer “your inner imposter”