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February 13th, 2007 | Posted in Technical Writing 57 Comments »
After Clyde posted his survey about technical writing blogs, we read the following from Fred Sampson’s blog:
… I included a comment saying that discussing technical writing bores me.
And Jenny comments:
Well, apparently, it bores me as well. I haven’t posted anything about it in at least a year (hell, I haven’t posted about anything in quite a long time), and yet they still listed my blog on the survey. *sigh* I guess even a barely-active tech writing blog is better than nothing at all? *shakes head*
I have been thinking about these comments today. Is technical writing boring? Certainly no one dreams of being a technical writer. It lacks the adrenaline of a high profile job like an ER doctor or a courtroom lawyer (or even soldier in combat). Nor do we lead the eccentric lives of fiction novelists (speaking of fiction novelists, you must listen to this hilariouis farce interview podcast of a fiction writer (episode 3).
I don’t drive to work thinking, cool, today I’m totally going to nail those instructions for the CRM mail merge after having to perform the tricky-but-still-possible-if-you-focus instructions for exporting the recipient database from your contacts with the right mail merge fields. Sweet! Am going to add screenshots, some concise but telling captions. Will single source the heck out of the content, maybe even manually layer the PDF with the visio chart. Must remember to maintain a consistent balance of text and graphics…
Uhm, my drive to work is often much different.
But dude, if discussing technical writing bores you, then wouldn’t a job that involves doing technical writing also be boring? And if your job is boring, how can you be passionate about it? If you’re not passionate about it, how can your work be anything but a 9 to 5 job?
While the content of what I write at work is not all that interesting, and even the paradoxes or other conundrums about technical writing sometimes dull, I really get excited about the technology side of my job. New technologies are emerging each day at a rapid rate. It’s like we’re living in the internet era before the dot.com burst. This is a Web 2.0 land, where even Google threatens to become the next operating system. I am really eager to use a wiki to write my next set of documentation.
I find that blogging and podcasting about technical writing (and technical writing encompasses a huge array of topics, from web design to illustration to usability to XML to single sourcing, DITA, and of course just help authoring) helps increase my interest and enthusiasm for the field.
But then again, I am young (31), and have only been a technical writer for two and a half years. Prior to this I was was a copywriter and a composition instructor. But comparing technical writing with the other fields, I really feel like I found my home with technical writing.
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half of the total respondents as blogs they read on a regular basis. I find the fact that these two were chosen the most often very interesting as they represent almost polar opposites in terms of delivery style. Tom’s posts have a much morepersonal toneand are often entirely based on his opinion where Scott’s are much less about his opinion and more like reading a news-oriented post or press release. The remaining blogs listed for this question were chosen in the following order from most read to
article
How refreshing!An actual response, nay, a comment thread, on my statement that discussing technical writing is boring, at Tom Johnson’sI’d Rather Be Writingblog. You can read my response over there. . . 9:02:49 PM Questions? Comments? Flames? [] Monday, February 12, 2007
Interesting post…
“I find that blogging and podcasting about technical writing (and technical writing encompasses a huge array of topics, from web design to illustration to usability to XML to single sourcing, DITA, and of course just help authoring) helps increase my interest and enthusiasm for the field.”
Amen!
Tech writing does use a common set of skills/rules (those that are fundamental to communicating and writing), but what’s great about the field is how dynamic it is.
Tech writers are user advocates. But user behaviors change, so we have to continually evolve. That’s what makes tech writing the antithesis of boring.
Every five years, we’re doing something different. Procedures to manuals, manuals to online, online to inline (where we seem to be heading as of now). Hardcopy to HTML to wikis. Flowcharts to screen caps to Captivate demos. Etc., etc.
Sure, worrying about parallelism in procedures and FrameMaker building blocks can be boring. But I’ve always felt that tech writers have an immense influence on how technology evolves. Sure, engineers innovate things and marketers sell them. But only we user advocates can create/destroy perceptions in the minds of the users, which is where the REAL power is.
Boring? No way!
Thanks for the comment, MonkeyPI. I agree that the constant change of technology makes our field very dynamic.
You also said,
“tech writers have an immense influence on how technology evolves”
I hadn’t thought about that before. You’re right.
Notice that I said “discussing technical writing bores me,” not “technical writing bores me.” Much different statements.
Although, frankly, most technical writing does bore me. Which is why I prefer to spend my time making an impact on product design to ensure that the product doesn’t need any documentation. If I have to write a bunch of words to explain it, something’s wrong. It’s also why I spend much more of my time hanging around with UX designers and HCI researchers in SIGCHI than attending STC meetings. Been there, done that, moved on. And don’t get the idea that I’m disparaging tech writers or STC, I’m just stating a fact of my life at this time.
“I prefer to spend my time making an impact on product design to ensure that the product doesn’t need any documentation”
Fred, thanks for clarifying. Do you think we’ll ever get to the point where we don’t need documentation for products? I get the sense that ease of use is paramount to most users. However, users also want the product to do exactly what they want it to do, which means the product ends up getting bloated with multiple features and advanced functionality.
The buttons on a blender and microwave are an interesting example. I generally just hit one button on my blender, but there are actually 12 buttons. Designers could make the product easier to use by reducing the buttons to just one, but then there would be an angry crowd of blender users who are aggravated that they can’t pulse, and others who don’t want puree, and others who want a low speed rather than hi.
To be easy to use, it seems like products have to strip away the myriad of features and simplify the choices available. Am I wrong? If they simplify, they anger some users. If they keep the product “robust” and complicated to use, they anger other users. What’s the solution?
Regarding blenders: The designers have already had at them. Newer ones have at most 3 buttons: high, low, and off. And too, with more powerful food processors and standing mixers with oodles of attachments (and one button in most cases), the blender becomes more a barkeeper’s friend than a cook’s must-have accessory.
“But dude, if discussing technical writing bores you, then wouldn’t a job that involves doing technical writing also be boring?”
Not necessarily. Doing the work of technical writing is not boring, but discussing the world of tech writing is. Frankly, the world of tech writing is a rather small one, and after awhile, so very confining. If you want to get better at the work and stay sharp (and have a long, progressively more lucrative career at the end of the day), you won’t want to be so confined.
“And if your job is boring, how can you be passionate about it? If you’re not passionate about it, how can your work be anything but a 9 to 5 job?”
If I’m passionate about a job, I’m essentially spending a ton of energy on something that will never return what I put into it. Jobs are administrative frameworks; at worst, black holes — they are not reasons for being. Your second question assumes that work (even paid work) cannot exist without that framework — forgive me for saying so, but it is a false assumption.
I do not have to be passionate about my job as a tech writer in order to be passionate about the work of tech writing. As I’ve said, jobs are boring and inflexible. The work endures always and can lead to progressively better things (if you’re smart).
I tend to agree with Fred. I got into tech writer because I am practical, nerdy and needed a real job since my actual degree (creative writing) wasn’t going to land me a job.
I’ve never been a member of STC and the only reason I might join is because my company might pay for it. And if I go to the conference this year, it will be for usability stuff, not tech writing stuff. I’m getting into interface design and find it much more rewarding work.
What I like about tech writing is learning the details about something I otherwise would never have learned about. The problem with tech writing is that few actually see it. Here, shoving help down necks won’t even get them to read it. Yet, a client will complain if they don’t have their special manual. It’s not rewarding work, and therefore is often boring. Especially if you’re on the same project forever, as has often been my case.
Stacia,
I know what you’re saying. Technical writing can get boring, especially if you’re working on the same project for nearly a year, and if the importance of the content you’re writing has been entirely downplayed. Still, you can look on the bright side — at least you’re writing. I also have a degree in creating writing. Some famous novelists (just a few) were technical writers — Robert Pirsig, for example.
I think technical communication encompasses a wide swath of disciplines. Everything is interesting from some perspective or another, if you look at it just right.
But the problem is that half, if not more, of tech writing isn’t writing at all. It’s formatting. It’s researching. It’s analyzing information. It’s trying to figure out what the audience needs. And I like all those things, but the writing sort of takes second stage.
Personally, I’m on my way out of tech writing and in to UI design. It’s like editing, but editing visual objects instead of words. It’s a bigger paradigm shift for me than I thought it would be, but I’m adjusting well. It’s been refreshing so far, but we’ll see how long that lasts.
UI design sounds exciting. One popular blog that has info on that topic is Creating Passionate Users. Adaptive Path is also a cool organization. The User Experience podcast also has excellent content.
Although I mostly do technical writing, I am also involved other facets of technical communication. I often make suggestions to developers for UI improvement. In project meetings I can contribute to the direction and flow of product development.
I know that integrating ease of use and intuitiveness into the UI is critical. It really what users want — a product that is easy to use. I think it’s great when a company values UI enough to hire a specialist.
Thanks for those links, Tom! Our team has been reading www.boxesandarrows.com lately.
I might be biased, but I think tech writers have fantastic UI ideas, sometimes even better than the designers and often better than the front-end developers. Explaining how software or even machines work for so long provides an important perspective others lack.
Yeh, what Stacia said. (Before I got into tech writing I’d never met a Stacia, and now I know two!)
To address your earlier question, Tom, about whether we’ll ever not need product documentation: I hope so, but we have a long way to go. And there will likely always be a need for doc on things like APIs, esoteric command-line administrative configuration options, fun stuff like that. But for consumer products, why not? Products are complicated not because users want them that way, but because marketing-drive companies think they have to address every whim that they’ve ever heard from a focus-group session. Most of us don’t use 10% of the power in most of our software; the iPod could be better in some ways, but count the number of buttons it has.
It’s not at all unusual for technical communicators to grow into UX or usability roles. If you’re paying attention, it just sort of naturally happens. When you find yourself writing gobs of arcane instructions because some developer says, “Well, we’ll just have to document that,” you realize that there just might be something wrong with the design of the product.
I still enjoy writing: see the articles that I’ve written for ACM magazine at http://www.fredsampson.com/interactions/index.htm. But writing procedures bores me to tears, and writing around bad design makes me angry.
Technical writing, for me, is primarily about empowering people to do better things of higher quality in less time. However, I find it creative and enriching as well. I get to play with cool technology before it’s released to the public, I get to be a professional nerd and a writer at the same time, and I have the great luxury of always learning and evolving and improving while simultaneously projecting those activities to our readers. We technical writers “demodulate” the bits and bytes for mass consumption, one might say.
A friend of mine who works as a programmer told me recently that he can’t understand how I can pigeonhole my career by doing nothing but writing procedures that an innovative programmer dreamed up. I challenged him, asking how he can pigeonhole himself writing procedures that an innovative customer demands. He showed doubt that our careers were so closely related, but I described technical writing as little more than programming in the language of English; that concise code and prose were both poetry. Needless to say, we both walked away from the conversation insisting our own argument was the correct one, but I felt a little more enthused about my career since that tete-a-tete.
Tom, either you are compensated very well or are truly loved for the work you do because I’ve yet to have a tech writing job that makes me feel as gleeful as you sound.
I do like tech writer and I certainly don’t regret getting into it, nor would I be greatly disappointed if I did it the rest of my life, but I need to be appreciated sometimes.
Stacia — Your last comment makes it sound as if being appreciated for one’s work is an elusive dream that only those “lucky enough” can realize. If you have yet to have a TW job where you are appreciated for the work you do, it sounds to me like some review of one’s job searching and interviewing skills is in order. Being appreciated for one’s work shouldn’t be the exception in this day and age — it should be the rule. And in many companies it is the rule. It’s just up to you to find them.
Hey, I really like my job, including the writing I do. I love the industry (e-commerce) and writing about web apps. I’m more appreciated by my team than I ever have been in the work place. But that doesn’t mean users read my stuff, despite being reminded of it very often.
And you can’t be serious that you can tell how appreciative a company can be from an interview. Please, they’re desperate at that point! And liking your personality can have nothing to do with appreciating work down the line. There’s a huge difference between “should” and what actually happens in work places, especially if you work for small companies.
Brian,
I’ve been wondering where the term “demodulated” comes from and how it fits in with your blog. That’s an interesting way of looking at technical writing. I like it. It would be a cool job title in place of technical writer. For example,
Tom Johnson
Professional Demodulator
Or, as a list of specializations — technical writing, content management, demodulation, etc.
Your conversation with the programmer sounds interesting. Programmers are often seen as the gods of IT, but really they’re just building requirements that customers demand, as you say.
Stacia,
You said, “I’ve yet to have a tech writing job that makes me feel as gleeful as you sound.”
I didn’t mean to sound gleeful. The more I think about the topic of “is technical writing boring?” the more I wonder about it. After 15 minutes of reading the Technical Communication Journal last night, I have to say, ’twas pretty boring.
But I am interested in the innovative directions that help authoring can expand. I think we need to move beyond the traditional help and go into the realm of Web 2.0. Project wikis, user forums, podcasts and blogs, help driven by user popularity, and so on. That is interesting to me. Needless to say, most of my day is taken up by webhelp.
It’s funny how people’s experience varies!
In fact, reading the comments above makes me wonder if we’re even in the same universe!
Why the preamble?
[Deep breath] Because in 21 years of technical writing, I’ve never met any technical writer who enjoyed the job at all, including myself!
So why do it? Simple, because the pay used to be awesome for a job that required zero qualifications, and until the great I.T job massacre of 2001, it seemed to offer job security for ever. I also happen to believe that I’m good at technical writing, and writing certainly always came easily to me from a very early age.
The downsides to technical writing? Numerous, and as middle age approaches, some are rather daunting. In no particular order:
Zero recognition and status, and your position on the totem pole is somewhere a fraction above the test team – ‘the poor bloody infantry’ of I.T.
Zero career prospects. In 21 years I’ve never met or heard of anyone making it to a senior or executive role from a technical writing background. The glass ceiling is thick and very low for technical writers.
Drudgery. The vast majority of technical writing comes from updating and maintaining existing documentation. Good technical writing is controlled and repetitive, follows strict rules of style and format and is the very opposite of creative writing or indeed any creative activity.
Job insecurity. When a company needs to lower the head-count, it’s not their engineering or sales forces that get cut. No, it tends to be more peripheral roles like the technical writers, the test team, and maybe support person or two. Long term prospects for I.T. are frightening, unless you’re happy to relocate to India or elsewhere in the developing world.
Pay. Pay rates fell dramatically in 2001 and thus far have not recovered. Having said that, the same is true to some extent of the whole I.T. sector.
***
Moral? Think carefully before you embark upon a career in technical writing – if I were 21 again, I’d try something else. And I personally know at least 10 technical writers who would say the same. But… it’s nice to see that at least some of you don’t share my woe
Roger,
Thanks for your comments. You certainly point out a lot of truths, and you’re right that there are downsides to technical writing. It is sometimes drudgery, the prospects for advancements are low, and technical writers certainly aren’t respected and venerated among IT like developers are.
I also think the job insecurity is another problem, and outsourcing. However, I was a copywriter and an English instructor prior to becoming a technical writer. The career prospects of teaching English are far worse. And copywriting can be fun, but I hated putting so much creative energy into selling products that I myself wouldn’t buy.
Personally, I think it’s a good time to be in IT right now. The web is exploding with new growth, new ideas. The profession is transforming. Traditional technical writing that is controlled, repetitive, structured, consistent, etc. is certainly not creative. But technical writers can express themselves in technically innovative ways. We’re starting to see wikis, blogs, podcasts, user forums, DITA, user comments, virtual worlds, chats, and other innovative tools being integrated into technical writing. Unfortunately the tools and company support of many of these technologies is still far from being adopted, but it’s coming. Technical writing is fun for me when I try to steer it in those directions.
For those who majored in English and love reading, writing, and working with words, there are few jobs that will pay such a soul what he or she is worth. At least with technical writing, though the salary may be humble, it is better than a copywriter in a publishing house in New York, or an English professor at a college. I still get to shape content. I get to experiment with new technology, try to figure out how things work, solve conundrums. I would like to be a programmer writer some day, and learn to speak and think in code. Overall it is a nice 8 to 5 job, and often rewarding. It does not zap your creative energy. You can write your novel or literary essays on the side, if that’s what you strive to do.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really enjoyed reading them. Because I’m somewhat new in technical writing career, obviously I don’t want to walk down a path of 20-year drudgery. Can you share some of the highlights and enjoyments of your technical writing career?
Tom, you brought up blogs and podcasts and other web 2.0 centered things, which is very interesting. Although 90% of the blogs out there are crap, that remaining 10% are really well-written, clever pieces of creativity that improve the world.
Are we discovering that more people can write than we, as professional writers, would like to admit?
Of course, to our benefit, typically the people in IT or engineers we write stuff for are not these hidden author gems.
And to Roger’s point, there really hardly ever is room for career growth as a tech writer. There’s no VP of Documentation. You either become a consultant of some sort or move into deeper IT stuff like usability.
Stacia,
Sometimes I think that if everyone started blogging, they’d improve their writing considerably and my writing skills wouldn’t be so valued. Yes, many blogs are crap. But you can more easily sort through them with RSS feeds. I have a “watches” folder in my FeedDemon newsreader. I have quite a few feeds I subscribe to (maybe 150 or so). The watch will scan those feeds for certain words. Also, the nice thing about reading blogs via feedreaders is the ability to skim down summaries. I usually read this way, taking in the first paragraph or just reading the title. Probably only one in twenty is relevant to my interests.
Another problem regarding blog quality is that many people think blogs are for writing fluff only. Blog has taken on associations with ranting, inaccuracy, amateur, pointlessness. But that is changing.
Oh I totally agree. Like I said, “90% of the blogs out there are crap, that remaining 10% are really well-written, clever pieces of creativity that improve the world.” I subscribe to so many blogs that I can’t even keep up with them and have all but given up on my Google Reader account. But, most of those blogs are about music, not work-related things, which might be a mistake.
Tom, you make some excellent points and I’m certainly not wanting to critisie or ‘put down’ anyone who holds different views…
You asked:
“Can you share some of the highlights and enjoyments of your technical writing career?”
Sure, although it’s far (I think) from typical. Basically once I’d discovered I hated the job but was rather good at it, I decide to make the best of things and use the universal nature of English to carve out an interesting career.
So, to be brief, I worked for companies in Geneva, Paris, Strasbourg, Eindhoven, and Versailles from 1988 to 1996. It was hard doing very boring work from 9 to 5 but the week-ends and holidays (vacations) were always special and at least I was bored in beautiful and interesting surroundings
In 1996 I decided to ’settle down’ and accepted a job as head of techncial documentation for an American software company. From a ‘career’ based viewpoint that was the highlight at least so far. I was fortunate to havbe a really talented and witty and beautiful team that basically managed itself. Halcyon days!
In 2001 the company went bankrupt.
In 2003 I got fired from a lead technical writer role and had to clear my desk within 5 mins while the person who ordered the firing gloated over my shoulder. That was the lowest professional part of my career.
To quote President Ronald Regan ‘mistakes were made’ – mainly because the job market was so bad that I was forced into accepting a job I had little interest in, and for a task that was probably too technical for me.
Since then I’ve just been an ordinary techncial writer, although the job market has thankfully recovered somewhat.
Other points of interest?
The major change from 1986 has been the replacement of paper manuals with on-line help systems which are far superior.
The major surprise has been the survial of Microsoft Word as a tool for professionals. It was pretty nasty back in 1990/91, and I’m astonished that I’ll be using it for work today although of course it’s evolved a lot since then although in strange and alkward directions…
Blah blah blah – hope people people got *something* out of that!
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I guess this is a rhetorical question, otherwise, why post it?
Technical writing is boring when it descends to the level of overpaid clerical/secretary-type work.
I worked at a company that had not implemented any single sourcing and, consequently I spent hours and hours copying and pasting FrameMaker content into Dreamweaver. It was exceedingly boring.
Lately, however, I’ve been editing some work of another writer who used graphic images to represent a concept and, in so doing, succeeded in confabulating the concept even further. You know the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Well, this picture would take at least a thousand words to explain. In the end, I redesigned the graphic and added appropriate and concise text to describe it.
While not as exciting as, say, lion taming, it did raise my interest in technical writing above the abysmal level described in the first project.
Madraven, thanks for the comment. It’s funny you should mention the story about using graphic images to represent concepts. Just yesterday I was thinking how we have to represent our ideas visually on the web if we want people to read them. Doing it successfully, however, can really be a challenge sometimes.
Re copying and pasting, I know what you mean. Formatting can be extremely tedious, especially when you know there are better methods.
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Is Technical writing boring? Ever tried _Proposal Writing_ / Bid writing?…This is genuine adrenaline writing
See www.apmp.org
Marie-L. Flacke
Sr Technical Writer and Proposal Writer
A person can be passionate about technical writing but then, one has to be passionate about the subject one is writing about. EE with a masters in technical writing working for an aerospace company; the job isn’t boring. Not when you’ve got clients like Boeing, Lockheed, Sikorsky, Airbus, and Nasa. If you’re passionate about something, the job becomes playtime, not work. My husband and I love to go flying on the weekends in our Diamond airplane. So, doing my job becomes real because the concept of “user-ability” better work. Ok, yes. the pay is great…no complaints here. But the rewards are looking back at a career of over twenty years knowing that the technical writing I wrote made a difference. Its been 20+ years of writing to document validation, verification, performance testing, safety, reliability, etc. Care about the reader and the technical writing won’t be boring. Its the individual technical writer’s challenge to make it interesting. If the reader has a vested interest in reading what’s been written, the technical writer did his/her job.
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Roger,
And here I thought I was the only one who felt this way. I could have wrote your reply, but I didn’t so I thought I’d add my thoughts:
1. Zero recognition and status, and your position on the totem pole is somewhere a fraction above the test team – ‘the poor bloody infantry’ of I.T.
That’s true – no matter how much BS they give you about demanding respect, etc., at the same time every other artcle about getting information from SMEs involves bribing them with chocolates or cookies or some such crap to get them to do their job. That should tell you all you need to know about how much respect a TW gets.
2. Zero career prospects. In 21 years I’ve never met or heard of anyone making it to a senior or executive role from a technical writing background. The glass ceiling is thick and very low for technical writers.
This is mostly true. My current boss made it to Director, but that was a rare case in that she started as the lone writer at this company, then as the company expanded, convinced the powers that be that a Tech Comm team was needed. By virtue of the number of direct reports she had, she became a director. However, most of the time Tech Writers are often either part of Training or Engineering Support, or bastard stepchildren of Development, and there is little or no career advancement. Senior Technical Writer (or Information Architect, Content Manager, etc., call it what you want, it’s still a technical writer) is usually the top of the heap except in rare cases like what I mentioned above. Why do you think so many people try to build empires in their STC Chapters?
3. Drudgery. The vast majority of technical writing comes from updating and maintaining existing documentation. Good technical writing is controlled and repetitive, follows strict rules of style and format and is the very opposite of creative writing or indeed any creative activity.
Definitely true, but oddly enough, this is the part that I don’t mind so much. To call the IT field chaotic would be putting it mildly, so the drudgery of updating and maintaing existing documentation, or writing a boring “How To” section is a welcome way of finding structure in chaos. I like my projects to have clearly defined parameters, a beginning, and an end.
4. Job insecurity. When a company needs to lower the head-count, it’s not their engineering or sales forces that get cut. No, it tends to be more peripheral roles like the technical writers, the test team, and maybe support person or two. Long term prospects for I.T. are frightening, unless you’re happy to relocate to India or elsewhere in the developing world.
5. Pay. Pay rates fell dramatically in 2001 and thus far have not recovered. Having said that, the same is true to some extent of the whole I.T. sector.
These two go together. I left one company in ‘99 one step ahead of a layoff. Then, in ‘02, almost got laid off again due to a lack of billable work. A sub-contract at the 11th hour that was supposed to be for 6 months but morphed into a 2-year gig saved me. Pay rates continue to fall (at least in my area) and I blame this on the Technical Writers out there who are willing to settle for anything they can get. $56k a year for a Senior Technical Writer with a Masters Degree in CIS? Are you f*****g kidding me?
6. Moral? Think carefully before you embark upon a career in technical writing – if I were 21 again, I’d try something else. And I personally know at least 10 technical writers who would say the same. But… it’s nice to see that at least some of you don’t share my woe.”
Um, yeah. If I were 21 again, I’d do a lot of things differently. But with my background and experience, this is the only place at this point in time where I’m going to make this kind of money. Anything else I’d have to retrain, and start at the bottom. So, it looks like I’ll be doing this until I retire – which is probably another 10 years.
No, I do not have a passion for Technical Writing. I don’t think I ever did. It’s a job I fell into by accident because I can retain information, write well, and my english, grammar, and organizational skills are above average. But, the real reason I do it is for the money. I get paid very well for not doing a whole hell of a lot when you look at what others in my pay scale have to do on a daily basis.
However, just because it’s a 9-5 job to me, doesn’t mean that I don’t give it my all. Just because I don’t have a passion for it, doesn’t mean I’m not going to put 100% effort into making sure that I turn out a quality product. I guess I would be that way if I were a Garbage Man too. At any rate, at this point in my life, I seriously am just marking time until I figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Hey, as long as I’m doing what I’m paid for, and doing the best job I can do at it, who cares if it’s my passion. I’m not getting paid for how much “passion” I have for the job.
Joe, thanks for the detailed response. It was really interesting to read your thoughts on this. I appreciate your honesty. Thanks again. I did have a follow-up post to this one here: The Question No One Asked Me at the Career Advice Panel, Thank Goodness..
Hi,
Good post. I wanted to know if technical writing is remunerative…..is a technical writer paid on / almost par with the software development guys……do let me know….
hi.
just got the job of technical writer maybe 2 weeks ago. i’m a fresh graduate from the province here in the philippines who luckily got her very first job in the city. i cant say that it is boring because i have a passion for writing as well as technology. i graduated with the degree of bachelor of scince in computer science in our province, and as a graduate in a province, we are less given a priviledge to have more knowledge about the courser unlike in the city where the colleges and the universities are very competetive. i’m currently working with the web developers and i can say that i am enjoying though some of it is i dont understand. just guys, can you please post some guidelines to be a much better technical writer. thanks!
bebas last blog post..Moving on…
Thanks for leaving a comment. Congratulations on landing a job as a technical writer. It’s not always easy to get your foot in the door. As far as guidelines go, I recommend visiting your local …. bookstore (I was going to say Barnes and Noble or Borders, but do you have those in the Phillipines?), and look for the computer books section. Take notes about how the instructional content is styled.
Also, you might benefit from reading a style guide like Apple’s. If you can learn a style for technical instructions, it makes writing much easier.
If you have more specific questions, let me know. You were kind of vague. There are many things to know about technical writing — balancing graphics with text, numbering steps, organizing by topic, single sourcing, interacting with SMEs, choosing the right tool, proofreading for accuracy, and so on. What do you struggle with most?
Sreejith, usually developers are paid more than technical writers, but not that much more. For example, in a 2006 Money Magazine survey, the study found that tech writers make about 57, and software developers make about 80. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/2006/top50/index.html.
Those stats are a bit outdated, but I’d still say that most developers make at least 10-20k more per year than technical writers. It all depends. There’s a range. An experienced tech writer probably out-earns a beginning developer.
TW = like Tetris, but with words
I get paid to play Tetris?
Cool.
No, it’s not Baldur’s Gate,
but I can live with that.
-d
oh btw I love Baldur’s gate…I want to be a technical writer at BIOWARE.
Hi Tom,
Yes, what you said seems like the as-is situation. Developers getting 10-20K per year over a technical writer is not much. I would like to believe that technical writing is an out-and-out knowledge creation / development job, because it is a role which combines analysis, information processing / gathering, and communication. Whereas a developers role would entail having an impeccable grasp over programming language (like tech writers have over the English / non-English language) to formulate output.
I am currently in the domain of Knowledge Management, and I have proactively involved myself in working with the collateral team in writing white papers, capability statements, case studies and also develop topic page content to satiate my urge for some writing. I am planning to take a 3 month course in technical writing to officially apply for a tech writer job in a software firm. Now my worry is if I go in for placements, will the company treat me as a fresher, or treat me as somebody with some writing background (though I have done only little writing.
Also, I am really worked up by Knowledge Management. Here in India, it assumes nothing short of a data entry job. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to get into KM in India, because it is hopeless and hapless.
Please do put in some inputs.
-
Sreejith
bid for position directory…
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Hi guys,
I know I might be a year late in participating in this post. I sadly, only saw this forum after searching through the net for information on technical writing careers. Your posts have been very interesting and helpful.
Like you guys, I enjoy writing. For the past few years, my work involved a lot of writing. However, since the companies I have worked for are small companies (in Brunei Darussalam), I have to do a lot of multitasking. Writing is just a part of the many jobs I have. But, its my favorite part of my job.
I was a Quality Assurance Coordinator for a number of food companies. As QA, my job involved a lot of documentation development (including implementation) of Procedures, flow charts, Quality manuals, Food Safety manuals, Employee rules manuals and others. (some of the manuals have been certified by Third party Auditors)In some, I was the subject matter expert. On others I merely did the re-writing. editing and format checking as well as translating from Bahasa Melayu to English.
Having experienced all that, I realized that it was documentation development which I enjoyed the most. Thus, I tried to search for careers which focused a great deal on documentation development and fortunately, late last year, I stumbled upon technical writing while I was surfing the net. There and then, after browsing through the job profiles of technical writers, I realized that it was the career I wanted to do for at least the next chapter of my career.
Now, I want pursue this field much more. To start, I have applied for a diploma in computer science program (I have a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology) which I hope to get accepted soon and I’m trying to learn more graphic programs to supplement my writing.
My reason for writing is that I would like ask for advice on what to do next. Actually I’m pretty unsure on how to start to advertise myself as technical writer. I am a 29 year man old (who recently became
A father so I need more income) with at least 5 years of policy and procedure manual writing (Food Manufacturing Industry).
Any advice for a newbie like me?
Thank guys
James
Hi guys,
I would say that 99% of the time my job as a technical writer is dire. The subject matter is boring and I feel like every ounce of creativity has been drummed out of me.
However – on a more positive note, the pay is pretty good so I’m trying to stick with it.
Save your Vizio! I had a Vizio VX37L that blew it’s main board. I felt as if I had just flushed $450 down the drain. It just stopped powering up. Not even the Vizio logo would light up. Fortunately, I read that replacing the Vizio Main Board (part # 0171-2272-2174) normally fixed the problem. It’s been over 6 months, and my Vizio VX37L HDTV10A is still working like a champ. These TVs are all modular inside. You can normally just replace a bad board yourself. I fixed mine in about an hour and a half.