A Natural Conversation about Technical Writing

An introduction to the new co-host, competition entries, an interesting entry from Microsoft, audio in instructions, screen demos, the STC annual conference, other technical communication tools, wikis, blogs, NetVibes, Get me the Geeks video, David Pogue, Walt Mossberg, and more.

Johnson, Tom H. and Heidi Hansen. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Podcasts

The Nature of the Narrator in Technical Writing  

Writers of technical information need to be aware of their rhetorical stance and think of themselves as narrators, as people telling other people about something or how to do something or what they propose to do. Too often writers of technical information write in passive voice and third-person narrative perspective, disguising or blurring their involvement in the activities they describe and often blurring and dulling the information as well. Writing in active voice and, when appropriate, the first person, enlivens information, removing it from the realm of the stuffy and stale.

Deming, Lynn H. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Rhetoric

Needless to Say

The needless repetition of words and the repeating of ideas is everywhere - in newspapers, books, magazines, e-mails, television, and even in conversation. They’re called redundancies and the English language is full of them. In fact, research shows that about 50 percent of English is redundant.

Dowling, Dave. Indus (2003). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Minimalism

A New Look at Infinitives in Business and Technical Writing    

This article begins by arguing that the infinitive phrase has not been taken seriously in writing because writers have been too concerned with Bishop Robert Lowth's proscription against the split infinitive. However, careful examination of three types of technical prose (instructions, annual reports, and 'junk mail') reveals that more than one sentence in four contains an infinitive phrase. The article then argues that two linguistic theories do not adequately explain the overwhelming presence of infinitives in the three types of prose. The reason for the presence of infinitives seems to be that they fulfill several rhetorical purposes, including vigor, symmetry, emphasis, variety, economy, and depersonalization. Implications for writing and teaching are also discussed.

Myers, Marshall. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Articles>Writing>Grammar>Technical Writing

New Manager's To-Do List  

The transition to technical publications management can be difficult.

Williamson, Marty. ComTech Services (2002). Careers>Management>Writing>Technical Writing

New Roles for Technical Writers: Web Masters "Oh My Gosh, Now I Own the Web Page!"  

In my presentation, I share my experience as a new web master, focusing on how technical communicators are well-suited 10 becoming web masters. I discuss what to prepare for and how things change when you become the webmaster.

Gillihan, Dana L. STC Proceedings (1996). Careers>Web Design>Writing>Technical Writing

Nine Easy Steps to Longer Sentences

Are you tired of short, direct, and simple sentences that seem to take forever to fill up a page? Are you paid by the word? In either case you can benefit by increasing the number of words in your sentences and the bulk of your writing. And it's easy if you just follow nine simple steps, many of which you may already know and practice.

McGinty, Kathy. PlainLanguage.gov (2004). Humor>Writing>Technical Writing>Minimalism

A Non-Management Career Path for Technical Writers  

Writing groups are challenged to find ways to attract and retain quality writers. After several years writing for a particular company, the job can become boring and stale. If writers are not interested in management, they may feel like they are trapped in dead-end jobs. To further their careers and keep the job interesting, they might move into development, usability, or QA. Or they might move on to another company. Either way, the result is the same—the writing group loses a talented writer. This paper discusses a solution—a technical career path. Our paper outlines the benefits of a technical career path and provides suggestions for proposing the idea to management and implementing this program.

Silvi, Deborah H., Susan Stotzer and Jamie West. STC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Writing>Technical Writing

Nonfiction University: Technical Writing

Included in this section are hypertexts composed by authors with explicit expertise in technical or scientific fields, or by technical writers who interpret technical or scientific topics for a nonspecialist audience. We include links to sites that explain the field of technical writing and its genres, along with references to aid technical writers.

George Mason University. Resources>Directories>Writing>Technical Writing

Not a Bad Life: Notes from Under the Desert

What's it like being a technical writer on a kibbutz? One obvious difference is the money. I do manage the business, but I don't own it - The Text Store is part of the kibbutz and, as such, is owned jointly by the kibbutz's 125 members. As a member of the kibbutz, I get a monthly allowance instead of a salary, so the money I earn from technical writing goes straight into the kibbutz's bank account. My only reward for landing a big contract is my co-workers' congratulations (we usually celebrate with ice cream).

Goldstein, Dan. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Israel

Notes from the Other Side: The Strange Profession of Technical Writing

With writing as my 'marketable skill,' I crossed over the Rubicon from literature to technology. I became a technical writer for a data communications company. My job entailed creating software documentation—a category of discourse that I had not known existed.

Merrill, Lynn L. ADE Bulletin (1989). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing

Now That You've Got a Double Agent, What Do You Do With 'Em?  

Having demonstrated the importance of acquiring a double agent for writing projects, we now want to explain the best ways to successfully indoctrinate a double agent. This paper will help you prepare for, orient, train, and become a mentor for a double agent to help make him or her an effective member of your writing team.

Fisher, Judith R., Karen L. Mobley and Michelle M. Wright. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Writing>Technical Editing>Collaboration

Nuclear Information: One Rhetorical Moment in the Construction of the Information Age  

Since the late 1970's we have been said to be living in the information age, and that name has stuck, with the phrase increasingly appearing throughout the closing decades of the millennium. The slogan, like all slogans, attempts to assert unity in the face of complexity; nonetheless, it captures, better than most such slogans, a dominant theme of almost all aspects of our everyday life. The slogan has its visual icons in advertising and journalism: binary bits flashing down wires and across the sky, tied to no location and independent of the humans who may need or use that information. Information has become an abstract universal, like atoms and electrons, to create or serve any entity, in no particular configuration, serving no particular purpose, gathered and used by no particular people (but of course provided or facilitated by specific companies who make this information their business). Information, however, is a human creation for human purposes, even if our devices now produce terrabytes of signals that travel only to other devices, never to be seen or touched by humans. This essay recovers a small piece of the history by which we constructed our understandings and uses of information, so that information has become pervasive in everyday life, needs, and action. It considers how information came to have major governmental and military meanings to the U.S. public during World War Two and after, and how an anti-nuclear test activist group asserted an alternative understanding of information to foster public opposition to government policy. This rhetorical reconstruction of information advanced a culture of citizen information, validated by citizen scientists to serve the needs and concerns of citizens, which pervaded the anti-war, environmental, and consumer movements that became our everyday reality in the second half of the century. Such citizen information embodies multiple assumptions about threats to everyday life, the necessity of reliable and up-to-date information for action to oppose the threats, large institutions whose interests are served by the threatening situation and which limit access to relevant information, science as an independent and objective source of information, and the responsibilities of a citizen to be informed.

Bazerman, Charles. UCSB. Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Writing>Rhetoric

Nurturing a New Writer

Technical communicators represent one of the most mobile groups of professionals I'm aware of, with some sources claiming that the average time between changing jobs is as low as four years. This means that many of us will soon find ourselves in the position of working with newcomers, whether permant staff or 'temps,' and this means we may face the problem of how to mentor or supervise someone new to our workplace. This article discusses how to work with someone who already has the basic training, but is nonetheless naive in the ways of your particular organization.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1999). Careers>Mentoring>Writing>Technical Writing

Obey Standards or Follow Customer Needs?

What is more important in technical writing: obeying the standards and regulations or following the customer's needs?

Thiele, Ulrich. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Writing>Standards>Technical Writing

Offshoring: Strategies for Prevailing in the Global Marketplace for Technical Writing  

Offshoring will not go away. Technical communicators can improve their prospects by taking offshoring into account as they envision their futures. After defining offshoring and outsourcing, this paper presents a brief history of offshoring and the myths associated with it, followed by a reporting of observations made by practitioners in the field. The conclusions of this report include recommended strategies for technical communicators to consider as they move forward in their careers.

Highby, Marie. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Writing>Technical Writing>Offshoring

Oh, Oh! The Job Ad Says OO  

More and more job notices request some knowledge of object-oriented programming concepts. So, what are object-oriented programming concepts, why are they so special, and what documentation challenges do they create. This seminar answers your questions about the real meaning behind those job ads.

Gallagher, Susan W. STC Proceedings (1998). Careers>Writing>Programming>Technical Writing

On Teaching Technical/Business Writing

Whether one teaches business communication or technical writing (or some amalgam of the two), the first statements an instructor makes in class should be to apprise students that the course upon which they are embarking is but a specialty within a larger field of writing, that their courses in English composition, philosophy and survey of literature (and the papers written for those courses) will all apply to the specialized communication field they now must address.

Wyld, Lionel D. Boston Broadside (1992). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

On Writing Engineering Cases

With wider acceptance and use of Engineering Cases in engineering education, there is a new form of engineering writing available. This paper presents some ideas based on our experience with cases over the last ten years, including writing over 25 cases (good or bad), assisting with several student-written cases, using cases extensively in our courses, and reviewing many cases, e.g., for Engineering Education. Use of Engineering Cases is still in its infancy; as use matures, things will change. We have adopted many ideas suggested by colleagues reviewing our cases. We have also drawn heavily on ideas from case writing for business schools. We do not view this as a definitive paper on case writing. We present these ideas as a compilation which may be useful to those who are considering writing cases and wonder what it is about. We also offer our compilation to seasoned case writers as a position with which to differ.

Kardos, Geza and C.O. Smith. Carleton University (1979). Articles>Writing>Engineering>Technical Writing

On Writing, Technical Communication, and Information Technology: The Core Competencies of Technical Communication    

This article contributes two arguments to the disciplinary conversation of technical communication with the aim of exploring leadership opportunities our field has in the field of information technology. The arguments assert that 1.) Writing is the core technology in any IT system, and all IT systems attempt to leverage the core strengths of writing to make these systems more valuable. 2.) Technical communicators have a central role to play in IT systems consonant with our core competencies: we attend to the balance of situated as opposed to generalized strategies and the balance of appeals to identity in writing about the practical use of technology, and we are well prepared to attend to these balances in other important arenas of IT discourse. Together, these two arguments are meant to begin or continue conversations—in workplace and academic contexts alike—that bring the issues of IT development and the future of technical communication closely together.

Hart-Davidson, William. Technical Communication Online (2001). Articles>TC>Writing>Technical Writing

One Hundred Simple Tech Writing Errors

Here are the 100 writing errors that the author has encountered in his experience. (Followed by the subsequent article 'Ten More Errors in Technical Writing.')

Kamath, Gurudutt R. IT People (2003). Articles>Editing>Grammar>Technical Writing

Open Source For Technical Writing Teams

A presentation introducting how to support technical documentation teams with open-source tools.

SlideShare (2007). Presentations>Collaboration>Technical Writing>Open Source

Opportunities in Engineering Publications  

Doing technical writing from within an engineering department can offer some special opportunities for the more technically-inclined technical writer. Compared to customary technical publications departments, there may be a greater variety of projects. There may also be more chances for inexperienced writers, especially engineers and technicians who want to enter technical writing.

Harvey, Patrick. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Writing>Engineering>Technical Writing

Perception at Work    

A technical writer is not respected; information providers and reviewers do not understand the importance of documentation; my deadlines are not given priority. Do these statements sound familiar? Are there any solutions to these woes that will help us deliver the best output to the end-user?

Lawrence, Prema. International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Workplace