Collaborative Writing and Reviewing

I follow Tom Johnson’s blog “I would rather be writing”. Tom points out quite correctly that one of the emerging trends in technical writing is collaborative writing and reviewing. It seems logically correct that when the turn around time for any software development is short, there are various writers who work on the same projects or rather write the same manual in parts. There may be several agile methodologies followed for the same project and one individual writer would be associated with one or more team to write about the features their team develops in due course of time. The writer’s job is to write the procedures and instructions involved with the features and finally that gets integrated in the final drafts when the software is getting released. But much before that the written contents pass through the technical reviews and the peer reviews.

One of the major factors I have observed is the process of reviews and the mindsets of the reviewers which differ from person to person. Believe it or not, in our settings the personal competence of the individual writer and reviewer differs immensely. The years of experience spent in the company does make you a senior writer or reviewer but that does not guarantee you to be the real senior in terms of your writing capability or reviewing acumen.

The similar temperaments are quite common among the developers and the testers who instead of validating the technical stuff encroach in the languages sphere, which at time becomes quite annoying. They would come forward bravely and suggest the sentences to be written the way they want. They feel that the way they understand even the common user would be able to comprehend. However, the interpretation of their own ability of the language comprehension is misbelieved and based on the misconception they carry in their mind. Their misconception is also supported by their own misguided belief that they understand the software or hardware to be developed much better than any technical writers. Undoubtedly the understanding of the technical nuances would be any day far more superior to any of the technical writers. Over and above they are the one on whom we depend to get the knowledge to write for the users to be educated.

This superior understanding of them does lead to form a basis of misconception which in reality is not helping the documentation. There are instances when the developers competence in language are far more superior than most of the technical writers. They are welcome to have their suggestions but should avoid verifying that their suggestions are implemented by the writers or not. After all it’s the writers’ choice, wish, and above all, the guiding principles of technical writing and style guide which a writer has to adhere to write the technical documentation. The role of developer should be to support the technical writers with technical knowledge transfer and not impose their own knowledge of language. Let the technical writers be their own masters.

Another flip side of the review is the peer review of the document by any of the colleagues or the team leads. Most of the time, the peer reviews are meant to reveal the missing elements in the documents and the suggestion would just say this is right or wrong, no explanation why its right or wrong. The underlying thoughts are to look down upon the fellow writers and not help the documents get value added. Then I really sometimes wonder why we say that technical writing is a team effort. The given instances do not really show any glimpse of team efforts rather it shows the individual perception of self proclamation of greater self. Does this really help the cause of documentation? Does this really serve the purpose of user? A badly written document would really reflect the bad image of the writer as well as the team for which the writer works. So, where is the so called team factor which keeps on going round in the circle? Truly when we say collaborative writing, its absolutely the team effort.

Therefore, to get the collaborative writing successful, a writer and reviewer will have to look beyond the individual goals and think for the common perspective of user interest. If the goal is not achieved then the document would look as if written by several writers as their own novel and compiled together. But the real meaning of collaborative writing is to achieve greater work in limited time period and the role of reviewer is to get the document be synchronize such a way that it should look that perhaps an individual writer has worked on it. It works really well but you got to believe in it and look beyond your self made selfishness tag to work towards bigger goal.

How can a Technical Writer add value to the IT Industry?

This was one of the questions in one of the Technical writing interview I faced in recent past. What should I write the answer? The first and foremost question! When you are pushed to the wall your creativity, competence, and skills play a vital role in salvaging your image of being so called Technical writer. As a common knowledge every technical writer facing such question would answer whatever they have heard from their pals, colleagues, and senior writers during discussion at some point of time. Then what distinction you have from the lot? You ought to be special. You need to think out of the box and answer and that should make you special if you want to be hired.

Out of the box! A really tough challenge to prove yourself that you can make a difference! A really tough proposition to prove your worthiness! The person who administered the test gave me enough of time to think and write my answers. Finally I could collect my thoughts and tried to put down on the paper.

Apart from the usual job of writing user manuals and WebHelp, Technical writers are best suited to help the organization to cut down their cost by means of their writing. How could they do it? When the product is launched in the market, the technical support teams are always available 24x7 to answer queries, questions and doubts of the user of the software and hard ware products. Based on the feedback received by the support team about the usage and difficulties of the users to use the product, they test the particular problem into the environment narrated by the users and try to address the problem and provide a resolution to the users. If the stated problem is inherent with the product, there ought to be numerous other hits by other users too on the same problem. And every time a support person will have answered them with the same resolution. Whereas, an article stating this problem and posted on the organization’s web site would lead users to first seek there resolution from this article rather then directly contacting the support team. In case, even the support team contacted, they will have ready answer to guide the user. The technical writers are best suited to do this job because of their language efficiency guiding the user by the procedures and steps to solve their problems. These knowledge based articles would help user a great deal according my understanding. If a series of problem hindered the users, probably a trouble shooting guide to a better job.

In some other instances, technical writers can be the brand advocates of the product donning the role of bloggers and blogging about the products to the organization’s web site or some other open source site. They can go to the different social networking sites and participate in the discussion and leave a note about the new product for the crowd to discuss. In case there are any doubts, negative impression and competitive issues with other similar products in the market, the technical writers would be in a position to address the issues in their clear and concise narratives.

These are two distinct roles which a technical writer can take up and add value to the IT industry by their worth of being a writer and truly a technical writer. Because whatever they are going to write is all about the technology and it is going to help the technology grow. This is what I thought and scribble in my paper during the written test. Although the exact words and sentences are not the same and I don’t even recall them. Call it my creativity or poor memory, but whenever I would try writing about the same it would be different language. However, it would mean the same.

But to my surprise, these were not the answers what the interviewers were looking from me. As I could see they were looking at same rut repeated hundred times by all the writers. They were not looking for a different answer, a different perspective, or some thing beyond the usual job. I uttered the same usual stuffs during my personal interview and I could see their relieved faces and a victorious smile stating we have nailed you. You have to be the same what we are and think the same what we think.

Little further they started inquiring about my authoring tool knowledge. I told them what all tools I have used so far for the authoring. They kept harping about the tool knowledge what I have not used. As if the tool will do the writing job and not the technical writers. Then what is the fun of interviewing the writers. Better interview the one who is the tool perfect person. A publishing specialist, who would do all the jobs except writing.

I realize that its not the writing or technical writing per se, its the job and the way you look at it. And so far we have been looking at technical writing as the display of authoring tool knowledge and not the writer who knows authoring tools to publish their work without the external help. Perhaps writing is the last thing happens in the technical writing job.

Therefore, if you are a writer and donning a role of a technical writer, think twice how you can add value to the IT industry. I am not sure but perhaps you might have some other way to add value what I failed to understand during the interview.

Hail the job interview!

Are you in a job searching mode? Are you looking for a job which would pay you better salary? Are you looking at the job description and thinking you would get it? Look at your previous experiences of job interviews.

Worst! The job interviews are not predictable, that’s for sure. You never know what kind of questions the interviewer will ask you and what kind of answer they would be expecting from you. But you can never be sure about the question the interviewer would ask you if they themselves have no clue about that or they do know the answers of those. Albeit, you can understand if the interviewers do not have answer about the question they have asked, how are they going to judge you on the merit of your answer? Is it simply the test of how you would address the question? Or do you know the answer of that question? I doubt nothing of these two. But most certainly, its only a catch to show that you do not know and they know better than you. Most of the time, interviewer suffer from this manic depression to prove themselves to the interviewee that they know better than them. You hate it or love it; most of them have this attitude. Most of them take credit in failing people then looking into the worth of the people who could be a useful resource. Call it inferiority complex in your words or rate this as the superiority complex of their personality, but here they are.

In my experience I have seen that most of the interviewers hardly go through the profile of a candidate before they enter the interview room. They do not do their home work to understand as what kind of questions would be valid to ask and judge the candidate’s competence and skills for that role. There are rarely relevant questions asked pertaining to the role. On the contrary, there would be several other questions which would not be relevant in relation to the role for which you would be getting interviewed. At some of the places, interviewers have said that you have written all kinds of documents or at least you have knowledge of authoring such documents. Some of the recruiters have surely have been impressed by my missionary zeal to have hands on experience writing various kinds of document and few of them have uttered saying you have got good writing experience. However, at the same time, they would also say, ‘your stay with any of the companies has not been long enough.’ Can you call them Id***s, F***s, or Novice? I would bet not the last one. Because they know what they are asking and at the same time they also are proving themselves that they fall into the earlier of the two categories. They can not be so ignorant. When you say I have good experience that means these experiences I have gathered working at different places. If you rot at one place you would end up doing same thing again and again, year after year. I can not have greater experiences working simply at one place handling different kinds of documents. Similarly, I can not learn more number of authoring and image editing tools if my company does not use any of those. Merely having knowledge of how to use the tools would not make me an experienced candidate on that tool unless it is used in the work environment. Importantly, most of the time resume would get short listed only if I know certain authoring and editing tools. So, can I be my own enemy, not knowing the tools and variety of document writing style and lessen the chance of my employment.

Funny! If you stay for the long time with a company and when you seek a change, an obvious question, ‘What made you stay so long with this company? Were you happy with your job?’ If the answer is, ‘yes’, ‘why then changing now?’ ‘Couldn’t you get a better offer earlier?’ ‘You have no knowledge of skills and tools we are looking for?

You are at their mercy. And remind you, a fool will opt for a fool; an intelligent would opt for a lesser intelligent, and none of the bosses like to have an efficient and intelligent worker. The idea is, bossing on good worker would be difficult and if they would be able to do their work on their own why would they need a boss. Question of survival! So, to survive, better get the ones whom you can hammer the way you want. Keep those away who can not be a ‘Yes Boss’ material. Well, judging the “Yes Boss” material in half an hours time would be sufficient. Any candidate, who tries to imitate the yes boss type, even if they are not, would definitely make some stupidity in half an hour time and that is enough for them to reject their candidature.

The professional hazard! Believe me or not, females are outnumbering males as technical writers in IT industry in India. I have no statistics about all over the world. Again, I do not have statistics about the writers in non IT industry, and male and female ratio in particular. But, ongoing scenario and folks around suggests me that biasness prevails quit a large. Not that we are unbiased. As human material we are vulnerable to be biased, but it is really astonishing that d***heads and feminist attitudes are adding up to the numbers of growing female writers in the industry. I really feel sorry for those d***head people whose groin governs the mind. Feminism always resides in the comfort zone. Although exception prevails, however, feminism survives better because of few d***heads.

If you believe that the job interviews are the test of your skills and knowledge, you are mistaken. All the gyan of how to face the interview or how could you get through the interview remains the imaginary gospel of some of the column writer who make their living by writing these posts. In reality nothing of that sort happens. By reading those columns, if you believe that you can do a better job, I advise better think before you take these seriously.

I have started understanding, you need to be smart to get through the interviews, and I agree I am not. But may be most of you could be. Smart! What is the meaning of this? I have no idea how this word might have originated but I am impressed whomsoever might have used might have been a screwed person who might have thought of making up for everything with winning spree. I am not sure, this is my assumption. However, the true display of smartness appears to be the same for me. Its all about how you portray, whatever you are not. Image building, character building, and career building with all sorts of trick, lies, conspiracy, and falsehood to cover up your incompetence, snatching credits from other, making yourself known what you are not, are all acts of smartness. Its like showing venom even if you do not have poisonous tooth. What about your conscience? Who cares?

Unfortunately, that is the last thing any of the smart people will think. Smart people! Everyone is fooling everyone. So, better know the art of fooling, otherwise you would be failing in many of the interviews. To be successful, be smart. To be smart, you know how to fool others and all is yours, whether it is d***head or feminist, all will hire you.

Hail the job interview!

Test is not tested

The door to work in the software industry as a technical writer begins with a writing test which at time becomes most important for short listing the prospective candidate. The writing test being conducted by various companies to select the technical writers in to their fold most often fails some deserving writer. I am not sure how good the test is tested before it is administered to the prospective writers. As the test varies from companies to companies, its length and breadth to test the knowledge of candidates also increases manifold. Most of the time and places where I have gone for the interviews I failed to understand the mindset of the persons who sets the questions and to understand the real intent of some of the questions. To me, it looked, more often than not that it fails to evaluate the skills and knowledge of the prospective writers.

Writing the test for getting through the interviews reminds me of the academic days which forces you to memorize the subjects for scoring marks to get good grades. I understand and most of us have understood by now that academics have no truck with reality in life. We definitely look beyond that in the professional field to measure our real value in terms of analyzing our potential. But the state of testing a writer’s caliber to fit him in the software industry is not a truly professional story to narrate about. The writing test which is administered on the writers to get selected as technical writer is not true test of their skills. Mind you, this test is not aimed to judge the geniuses of your creative imagination. This test is aimed to know the ability to write procedures and instructions in simple and clear language applying the style guides what the industry follows.

The real skill of a writer is to write. Be it any piece of writing if you have the ability to write you can always learn the style and use that into your document. So, the real intent of the test should be to test the thinking ability of the person and the way thoughts are presented in grammatically correct sentences. But some of the question which are asked has no connect with the writing ability of the writer, it is purely intended to judge the English and grammar knowledge of the writer. The knowledge of grammar and English language are important for writing good English but at the same time writers are not expected to remember entire grammar. They need to know how to use them in the writing. The necessity of queens English for the king’s crown is definitely not desirable.

However, you will keep getting the questions, which will intend to test your knowledge beyond your writing ability. Some of the questions what I came across while writing different tests are as follows:

What is the long term goal of your life?

What is the short term goal of your life?

According to you what is the main hurdle of India’s growth?

What is dangling modifier? Explain it with example.

What is restrictive clause? Explain it with example?

What are parts of speech? Discuss all the parts of speech with example.

What are subject-verb agreements?

What are articles? Describe about different articles.

There may be many more questions which our other writer friends might have faced during the test and can vouch whether it is justified or not.

Some of the questions will be posed to test the knowledge of the tools you have used. The fact is, you need to know the tool to use for the documentation. Your past acquaintance would gain you some mileage but tools would not do the writing on your behalf. It is used for the presentation of your content. Some of the companies have realized lately that tools can be learned while you work on the product. And they have changed their approach in their selection procedure. Similarly, knowledge of process in software development is another desirable factor which is stressed. Whether you have worked on scrum methodologies or age old water fall methodologies does make some difference.

Some of the companies would try to test the domain knowledge of the writers. This is another indigestible fact because a writer who has not worked in some domain would not know even the basics of that domain. The job of technical writer is to get the knowledge from the stake holders of the product that includes subject matter experts, developer and architect and transform that knowledge into writing for the user. The writers are the flexible lot whose job is to learn the technology and domain knowledge on the job. The open mindedness and interest to learn new technology and new domain can let any writers do wonderful job. However, there would be definitely some exceptions, but exception can not be the general perception. As of now, it looks to me that the entire technical writing in India is driven by perception.

All this is done to siphon out the better writers from the good lot. But these tests are not always foolproof. The vivid example came into the light when ten of my ex-colleagues got into a mobile software technology company by virtue of scoring very high in their written test. The secret is one took the grind and let others know the answers in advance. All of them were not the great writers but their score made the interviewer believe in them. No one tried to find anything beyond that.

Giving the subjective tests also does not get you always the better part of a writer. Writing depends on the state of mind. The day when a writer is calm, composed and has clear thinking during the test, he/she might do a good job. If too many things are hovering through the mind, the distraction can lead them end up doing a bad job.

The blend of subjective writing exercise, some of earlier writing samples and a personal interview can give a fare idea about the capability of a writer. Moreover a writing exercise administered a day before the personal interview on two of the topics given by the interviewer in writer’s own time would also provide little more insight. Nevertheless, the judgment of a writer’s capability in an hours test is sheer eyewash. If you pass, its your sheer luck. If you fail, its your destiny. You do not know where the battle of your luck and destiny would take you.