Many people are interested in technical writing but they don’t know whether this profession suits them or not. If you’re a novice here and think that technical writing is totally about writing complicated tech manuals, read my article called ‘What is Technical Writing’ first and come back here!
So, here are the tips which will help you make the right decision about your career choice.
You don’t have social anxiety
In spite of technical writing sounds like you’ll have to write all day long, your days will be full of meetings. Tech writers work with people of different professions like developers, SMEs, designers and so on. Sometimes, it will not be meetings: you’ll have to chase after people to get information on the subject.
This job will not suit people who have social anxiety or who are too introverted because you will constantly communicate with people and, surprise, they won’t always be happy to talk to you. And that’s ok, all people are different but just keep this in mind: sometimes, you will feel annoying.
You like concise writing
Technical writing doesn’t imply a great amount of text with epithets, metaphors and the like. You will have to write short sentences like:
- Press button A
- Then press B
- Then press C
Of course, I exaggerate but your writing will look more or less like this. If you feel like you need more ‘drama’ in your technical communication, remember — in most cases inappropriate. Manuals should be clear, concise and easy-to-interpret. A user should get the main idea quickly and they don’t have to get through your writing. I suggest reading an article called ‘How to Up the Drama in Your Technical Documentation’ to learn more.
You like creative work
Technical writing implies not only writing manuals. Nowadays, documentation is hosted online, so to make your docs better and users’ life easier, tech writers add not only screenshots/photos but also graphics and video tutorials. It’s confirmed by statistics that a video format is more popular now than the other formats, and its popularity is still growing. This responsibility — creating visual content — may sound cool but I have to say that it’s not so easy as you can imagine. Creating a script for a video, recording, editing, iterating based on the feedback and the like will take up much time.
You’re interested in technology
Technical writers are in demand in different spheres like IT, engineering, medicine and so on. You don’t need a technical background to get the job but to write high-quality documentation should understand how it works.
Besides that, you should be a confident computer user and it’s not only because of visual content creation when you use different feature-rich tools, but it’s also because of tech writing itself. Nowadays, MS Word is not enough, tech writers use professional help authoring tools that are more complex and specialized than MS Word. If you have no idea what a help authoring tool is, read the article called ‘A Few Words About HAT’.
Conclusion
Here, I don’t want to scare you away. All professions have cons and pros, and I wanted to share the real situations and issues technical writers face every day. I also recommend that you read the articles below to learn more about the technical writing profession and make a conscious decision.
SOURCE: https://medium.com/technical-writing-is-easy/is-technical-writing-for-you-55559990ff31
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Technical Writing is Easy