Building a Technical Writing Portfolio

Technical writing is one of the few careers in which building a portfolio can be almost impossible. A technical writing portfolio is not limited by your experience, but by your imagination. And a good imagination is one of the things employers like to see in a technical writer.

Dodson, Linnea. Writer's Block (1999). Careers>Portfolios

A Decade of Research: Assessing Change in the Technical Communication Classroom using Online Portfolios    

Over a period of 10 years, we have developed a sustainable process of online portfolio assessment that demonstrates both reliability and validity, using both qualitative and quantitative measures. The sustainable cycle is that, each semester, we assess a random sampling of the students' work that they have posted, as per our instructions, in an online portfolio. During the reading, the faculty score the documents for 11 variables, including writing, content, audience awareness, and document design. We achieved validity by a modified online Delphi that led to a redefinition of the construct of technical communication itself; we achieved reliability by adjudication resulting in adjacent scores. The results of our assessment meet the requirements of ABET and result in a continual cycle of improvement for our technical communication curriculum. Results from three semesters show an improving correlation between the course grade and the overall, holistic portfolio score.

Johnson, Carol Siri. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Academic>Portfolios>TC>Online

Developing a Web-Based Portfolio  

Kendus discusses the benefits of online portfolios for job candidates and offers tips on creating them.

Kendus, Steven M. Intercom (2002). Careers>Portfolios>Web Design

Developing Your Online Portfolio  

Online (Web, CD, digital, electronic) portfolios are an important and emerging tool for technical communicators. Creation, design, and distribution, as well as stylistic concerns, are critical issues in the development of an online portfolio. This paper provides suggestions for preparing an online portfolio and is the result of information gained from an online survey of working technical communicators.

Barry, Kevin M. and Jill C. Wesolowski. STC Proceedings (2001). Careers>Portfolios>Online

Digital Portfolios: How to Market Your Skills!   

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune last year suggests that technology workers need a variety of skills that include soft skills--good communication skills and the ability to work in teams.

Reece, Gloria A. and Louise I. Keeton. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Portfolios>Online

Diving into the Wonderful World of Web  

When asked for my opinion on how to break into the Web world, I usually tell people to volunteer. I was very lucky when beginning my Web career in the early days of the Internet—my Web sites received a lot of good exposure. But when I jumped into self-employment a few years ago, I had to start all over again: I needed to show potential clients what I could do, not what my Web team could do. So I found a poorly designed Web site and offered to redesign it for free (the Oklahoma Indian Times Web site at www.okit.com). OKIT jumped at the offer (to read more about this, see “The Need for Web Site Navigation” in the June 1999 issue of Intercom). A lot of my friends thought I was crazy doing all that work for free. But I needed to build a Web site from scratch so I could give prospective clients an example of my work. Nothing is more convincing than before and after pictures.

Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. Intercom (2001). Careers>Portfolios>Web Design

E-Portfolios  

E-portfolios collect samples of technical communication on a CD or a website. They offer more presentation options than the traditional hardcopy portfolio. While the construction differs from the traditional portfolio, the purpose and principles of design and content remain the same.

Smith, Elizabeth Overman 'Betsy'. STC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Portfolios>Online

How to Create a Portfolio

So, you decide that you would like to create a portfolio. What do you do? Where do you start?

Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson. Careers>Portfolios>TC

How to Organize a Portfolio

You have collected the pieces you would like to include in your portfolio. You have sorted through your collection and selected your best work. You have made entry cards for each piece to provide a good introduction for each sample. And you are ready to place your work, introduction page, entry cards, section dividers, and give-aways into your new leather portfolio. Where do you start?

Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson. Careers>Portfolios>Information Design>Card Sorting

Key Content: Developing a Personal Tagline

It is a helpful exercise to develop a tagline for yourself, in the same way that professionals in a previous generation were encouraged to develop a mission statement. With shortening attention spans, today's professional needs only a few-word tagline to fit in the sound bite of management's smaller time slots.

Albing, Bill. Carolina Communique (2007). Careers>Portfolios>Workplace>Collaboration

Paper and Electronic Portfolios: Saleskits for Technical Communicators in the Twenty-First Century  

In the twenty-first century, technical communicators are discovering that portfolios (electronic and/or paper) are indispensable career tools. Portfolios have many uses because they contain a variety of documents that have been developed with the tools and skills claimed on the resume. In addition, portfolios can be instrumental in getting a promotion or winning a contract.

Smith, Herb J. STC Proceedings (2002). Careers>Portfolios>Consulting

The Pedagogical and Programmatic Issues of Incorporating ePortfolios  

The field of technical communication is in many ways inscribed by technology. As a result, technical communication programs not only must provide students with a foundation in the theory and practice of the field, but also must give students some level of proficiency in the technology tools they will need to put that knowledge into service in the workplace.

Dubinsky, Jim. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Academic>Portfolios

The Portfolio

When reviewing a job applicant's portfolio, different interviewers have different criteria by which they judge the applicant's previous work. Some interviewers may be looking for very specific applications or specialty skills; others may be looking for evidence of a generalist who can do many types of work; still others may be looking for work that exhibits the company's priorities or goals. Some guidelines to keep in mind when developing a work portfolio include the following.

Gillis, Tamara. IABC (2006). Careers>Portfolios

Portfolio

A portfolio is a collection of materials you have created. You will present five or six substantial samples of your work, each one prefaced with a statement that explains the circumstances under which you created it, as well as an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses.

Boise State University. Academic>Portfolios

The Portfolio as a Strategic Marketing Tool

The Contractor SIG's Annual Portfolio Review was held Tuesday, February 19 at the Northwest Neighborhood Cultural Center in Portland with the objective of providing a valuable opportunity to find out how to improve one's portfolio. The focus of the event was balanced not only by a review of winning portfolio characteristics, but also a look at techniques for using the portfolio as a sales tool. Attendees were given the opportunity to show and receive feedback on their own sets of samples.

Vellek, Rolf. STC Williamette Valley (2002). Careers>Portfolios

Portfolio in Technical Communication  

The Technical Communication Certificate requires you to keep portfolios of your work in TCC communication courses. When completing the TCC, you will then draw from these course portfolios to create a portfolio that represents your work throughout the curriculum.

University of Wisconsin. Careers>Portfolios>TC

Portfolios Across the Curriculum: Whole School Assessment in Kentucky  

When the Kentucky Supreme Court declared the public education system unconstitutional in 1989 and the legislature passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) to revamp the existing system, we Kentucky English teachers became involved in the broadest reform ever attempted by any state in the nation. As part of the reform, a yearly state-wide performance-based assessment of each school was instituted in 1991. Along with other components, the assessment included a writing portfolio, holistically-graded by teachers in each school, that would count 14% in the total assessment.

Moore, Lizabeth and David R. Russell. English Journal, The (2001). Academic>Portfolios>Assessment

Portfolios for Technical Communicators: Worth the Work  

Scott describes a professional portfolio and examines common items every portfolio should contain. She clarifies the difference between portfolios for experienced professionals and those for students. The article includes some employers' recommendations for successful portfolios.

Scott, Julie S. Intercom (2000). Careers>Portfolios

Portfolios: Tools for Acing the Interview  

Molisani explains how technical communicators can use their portfolios to take charge of an interview.

Molisani, Jack. Intercom (2003). Careers>Portfolios>Interviewing

Private Literacies, Popular Culture, and Going Public: Teachers and Students as Authors of the Electronic Portfolio  

In The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts, Richard Lanham suggests that perhaps those most resistant to the 'digital revolution' are members of English departments, those who are often divided between what does and what does not constitute a text. Often at the heart of this debate is the privileging of one literacy paradigm, that of print, and the marginalizing of another, primarily that devoted to the production of electronic discourse. To further complicate the issue, even when we do recognize electronic models of literacy, we tend to shape our experience, as Johnson-Eilola has so eloquently pointed out, through our nostalgia for earlier models of literacy, again, those focused on print and the printed page. It is no doubt important to teach students the ways in which rhetorical and literary texts are produced, distributed, and consumed; however, it is equally important for teachers of writing, primarily members of English departments, to acknowledge the production and consumption processes of texts external to the genres of the academy and to recognize that the essay is a printed form that admittedly for our students has little use outside the academy.

Wilferth, Joe. Kairos (2002). Academic>Portfolios>Writing

The Professional Portfolio As Heuristic Methodology    

The antecedents of literary autobiography as we know it today emerged during the 17th century against a backdrop of the rise of empirical science and inductive method. An arguably older form of autobiography--the portfolio-- has, unlike the literary biography, languished on the periphery of academia during our time. While it should not be controversial to say that possession of an heuristic bent is one mark of a successful education (since learning how to think, that is learning how to be open, alert, engaged, is the fundamental mission of the student), the portfolio has been ignored in part because of its modern connotation as a 'marketing' tool but perhaps more significantly because as a heuristic methodology it is a threat to the centrality of the pedagogue. I argue that the portfolio deserves at very least a re-evaluation throughout academic (to say nothing of quotidian) life as an indispensable tool of the spirit of pedagogy. Like the autobiography, it is validated by the belief that gathering data or details about individual lives has to precede drawing general conclusions or seeing any overarching patterns.

Luescher, Andreas. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Careers>Portfolios>Methods

Professional Portfolios: Showcasing your Technical Communications Skills  

A portfolio is a technical communicator's most important marketing tool. It showcases talents and abilities while giving prospective employers or clients an opportunity to learn about the candidate's skills and career direction. Often, communicators either do not have a portfolio or have not presented their works in the best possible manner. Professional portfolios are as indispensable as a resume. As the focus of technical communication expands, the need for multiple media to present a communicator's work is inevitable. Rather than a portfolio, multiple portfolios--in hard and electronic--formats are necessary to successfully portray your skills and career direction.

Coker, Louellen Sue. STC Proceedings (2005). Careers>Portfolios>TC

Put Your Portfolio on the Fast Track

Amongst pomp and circumstance, many graduates are hitting the pavement this spring looking for that pie-in-the-sky job at the dot-coms, design studios and graphic arts firms. Each year the Design and Publishing Center get dozens and dozens of phone calls, letters and resumes all touting the awesome talent and experience of each new crop of graduates. We tip our hats to you with a little advice.

Design, Typography and Graphics (2001). Academic>Portfolios