<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:s="http://www.techrepublic.com/search" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"  xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<channel>
    <title><![CDATA[Discussion on Five tips for becoming a tech writer ]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070]]></link>
    <atom:link rel="hub" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" />
    <atom:link rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070/rss" />

    <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <lastBuildDate>2013-05-19T02:18:00-07:00</lastBuildDate>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[Some writers ARE dreadful at it.]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437677]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[I've edited documents that other so-called Tech Writers have written. Some of them are indeed dreadful. I used excerpts from one document to create a brief guide showing examples in ten different categories of bad tech writing. Bad writers flood the market and dilute the opportunities for the ones who do create useful manuals. I've been struggling to get work for the past couple years. Fortunately, I'm working at present.I've gotten great feedback from the folks who use my manuals, and they're happy to have them. But I work hard at making manuals that are clear and helpful. And truthful. Do you know why there's often a message on an otherwise blank page? (You probably do, bagby.) It shows that the document isn't misprinted. But, I refuse to use a self-falsifying blank-page message. My end-of-chapter pages state the truthful, &quot;This page concludes [Chapter Name],&quot; suitably formatted.This only helps for printed manuals, which many organizations (especially those who really don't care about their end users) think are passe. Aren't electronic versions just as good, if not better? No! The adjacent pages of a printed manual are seen easily, often to good effect, while adjacent e-pages are rarely visible. It's really hard to thumb through e-pages to scan for other related useful information. Finally, my end users of recent years spend a lot of time behind equipment racks, and they love having a real paper manual while trying to connect or replace complicated hardware. E-books just don't hold a candle (or a Kindle) to paper documentation for much of the real world.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437677]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[SirWizard]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:54:42 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[disingenuine]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437494]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Did you perhaps mean &quot;disingenuous&quot;? ]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437494]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[donald.yost@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:06:10 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[Doing it well vs getting paid]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437479]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[This was disappointing on the &quot;getting paid&quot; front. I already know how to write well enough that people on discussion boards tell me I should write books about things I explain to them. What I don't have the first idea about, and this article doesn't cover, is how to begin translating that into money. I don't *know* any editors. I don't know how to find any or how to submit work to them. THAT would have been useful.Writing technical documentation well, is a different thing. Most people, including most who have the job title &quot;tech writer&quot; are dreadful at it, and produce the sort of useless documentation that accompanies most production software -- nowadays, most &quot;help&quot; files. The manual or file just blithely repeats what was already self-evident on the screen and goes not one step farther. (And if you're Microsoft, uses made-up names for things, instead of the existing ones.) People get paid for that???If your problem is even a little bit out of the ordinary, or indeed is anything that isn't really self-evident, the documentation probably won't help you at all, and you'll be reduced to googling for answers to your problem. Most of the documentation won't even suggest helpful web sites to you. I find it nearly useless as anything but a reference AFTER I already know what it contains, and that it's much faster to figure out how to use the software on my own. &quot;Manual? I don't need no stinkin' manual!&quot; It goes on the shelf and it stays on the shelf until product EOL.Company style is epitomized by the extremely helpful, grievously false adjuration, &quot;This Page Intentionally Left Blank&quot;. Great, you've started out by transparently lying to me. I can see this relationship is going to go well.To the extent that the term has an accepted meaning, it's one that needs to change.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437479]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[bagby]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:49:49 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[If you decide to write documentation for ANYTHING]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437304]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Change your name to &quot;Euripides Upmann,&quot; because that's what people will do with it, if it is not simple, interesting, to the point, with little bits of humor, and personal stories sprinkled in.Just my eleventy three cents.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437304]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Roc Riz]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 06:24:27 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[The term &amp;quot;tech writer&amp;quot; already has an accepted meaning...]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437119]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[in the IT industry. It would be no less absurd for Ms. Murray to state that someone who leisurely peruses the world wide web to see what serendipity presents them, is a &quot;web browser.&quot; I may be overly-sensitive to word usage, but it strikes me as disingenuine for any writer to repurpose a mature term with a well-known definition - unless the intended affect is conflict with preconceived notions, as in parody or sarcasm. To me, and most of the TechRepublic audience, &quot;tech writer&quot; is short for &quot;technical writer,&quot; a professional document producer whose skills include command of formal American English, formatting documents for usability, at least journeyman level use of electronic content development tools such as the Adobe Creative Suite, and perhaps a flair for graphic presentation of information. Conversely, what is offered in the article are tips for becoming a freelance author of IT content.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3437119]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[ben.lagueux]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:12:50 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[I am a Tech Writer]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3436093]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[My eyes went immediately to two Os, too. And the critical comment titled Techncial (sic) Proofreading?Beyond those, this puff piece suffers from an incorrect title, which should have been, &quot;Five tips for becoming a blogger.&quot; Far too many illiterate bozos crowd the field of technical writing, burying hiring or contracting companies with swarms of resumes, thus diminishing the visibility of actual tech writers.Hobnobbing with high-profile bloggers?! That's not what technical writing is about. It's more about getting the first glimpse of a steaming heap of half-digested software squatting on the horizon, and then detailing its interface and functionality so that while presenting no insult to the sensibilities of geniuses, any oaf could comprehend it.So, here are a few tips of my own for would-be tech writers:0. (Zero-based indexing suits the situation.) Determine if you have a knack for formal language and quality writing. Are you really good with grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and proofreading? If so--great, because native talent helps a lot. If not, either abandon the idea of technical writing as gainful employment, or start becoming good through intensive study and education.1. Do you like to use your real voice and include some fun and nonsense? Forget about it. That's fine for creative writing or unpaid techie guidance, but good documentation requires a consistent tone and formatting that matches The Company's templates, existing documentation, and style guide. Start reading a style manual: the Chicago Manual of Style, Strunk and White, U.S. Government, or the Microsoft Manual of Style. 2. Become very skillful with at least one word processing program, be it Word, InDesign, FrameMaker, or--well, there really aren't many others involved in paying work. Become conversant with styles: paragraph, font, numbering, and so on, and how they cascade.3. Practice writing (especially instructive material), give it to nitpicking editors and grammarians, and learn from what they say.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3436093]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[SirWizard]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:30:09 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[Techncial Proofreading?]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3435441]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Shouldn't this be 'to' below? Appropriate that this typo occured under ask, ask, ask.Resist the temptation to believe that editors hold the key to some kind of golden domain that very few writers get entrance too.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-343070-3435441]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[cyndi@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:46:00 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
    </channel>
</rss>

