Technical writers write technical and software manuals, handbooks,
technical guides, and provide online help. Anyone who writes about technology for other people is typically referred
to as a technical writer. The United States Department of Labor, recognizes technical writer
as a distinct job category, stating that technical writers produce
Instruction manuals and other supporting documents to communicate complex and
technical information more easily. They also develop, gather, and disseminate technical information among
customers, designers and manufacturers. The Society for Technical Communication,
the largest professional organization dedicated to advance in the arts and
sciences of technical communication, would call a technical writer
a technical communicator. Besides, a technical writer can be
called as a documentation specialist, information developer, to name just a few. Like any profession, becoming a technical writer requires
a mastery of a certain set of skills. For technical writer,
writing skills can never be overlooked. The technical writer needs to write
in a clear and concise manner and to be able to convey information
appropriately for a variety of audiences. Technical skills of a technical writer,
depend greatly on the subject matter, product or
service that require documentation. Hardware and software documentation differ in the
skills that the technical writer needs. Additionally, pharmaceuticals and other
manufacturing industries have specific requirements that translate into
knowledge the technical writer must have. A technical writer who has been asked to
document a developer's guide might need to have a pretty good handle on
specific programming languages. While a technical writer who has
been tasked into documenting a weapons defense systems might need a
high degree of engineering comprehension. As well as a solid knowledge of document,
or government documentation standards. Needless to say, a technical writer needs
to know his or her way around computer systems, since they're used to produce
documentation in a variety of formats. Specific tool knowledge such
as Adobe FrameMaker, MS Word, MadCap Flare, RoboHelp, and
even PageMaker and Quark. Really depends on the tools
the organization has become to rely on in order to produce it's
technical documentation. However, technical writers
are accustomed to learning. It's really what they do and most are capable of learning a new
tool too quickly and efficiently. Technical writers need to
know how to ask questions. They also need to know who is the best
person to approach to and they need to have a feel for the right personalities
and preferences of the people. The Subject Matter Experts, or SMEs in
order to know how best to approach them. Once the technical writer has found
the appropriate SME to approach, strong business skills were very quietly
capture the information necessary and to know which folder and
questions need to be asked. An appreciation of the visual, can be an important part of
a skill set of a technical writer. Even the easiest tacking documents did
not consider of just written word. To a growing extent, the technical
writer needs an appreciation for graphics and
formatting as well illustration skills. Depending on the needs of
the organization, these skills may only need to be rudimentary or
they may need to be very advanced. A technical writer may also get ask to
take an active role in his ability and testing. Even if not ask to take a role technical
writer knows that validation of the documentation is important. The confirmation that the product works
the way it is documented to work. In some organizations, the technical writer is an important
part of the user experience team. These skills are just a small part of what
the technical writer brings to the table. The set of skills of a technical writer
very widely depending on the technical writer's experience and his or
her educational background. Certainly the specifics of the job
vary widely from company to company, but broadly stated a good
technical writers create or gather technical information and
then organizes it and present it in such a way that it is understandable and
useful to the defined audience. In other words technical
writers produce documentation. Documentation refers to any content,
written, illustrated or both, supporting the use, operation, maintenance,
or design of a product or service. It can be in the form of a printable or
a webpage, help in software or on a mobile device, a video, blog, wiki,
or more, but it's all still documentation. Technical writers work in
a wide range of industries. Among them software, Internet, e-commerce,
networking, telecommunications, bioengineering, semiconductor, aerospace,
hard science, medicine, automobile, government, heavy equipment,
the armed forces, and manufacturing. Also the subject matter is different. Processes and methods for
producing documentation are often the same across
widely different fields.
