R.K. Narayan’s "The Story Writing Machine" and AI’s Role in Creativity

R.K. Narayan, the renowned Indian author, wrote a satirical piece titled "The Story Writing Machine," in novel Vendor of Sweets, which is an imaginative exploration of a world where a machine could write novels for authors. In this work, Narayan humorously critiques the idea of technology replacing the very human touch that defines creativity and storytelling. In many ways, this early piece can be seen as a precursor to the current debate surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to influence or even replace human creativity, especially in fields like writing, art, and music.

In the present age, the role of AI has evolved significantly, and it is no longer confined to just mechanical tasks. AI has become increasingly proficient in processing vast amounts of data, learning from patterns, and generating human-like outputs. This transformation, while still in its early stages, has sparked questions about how AI could shape human work, particularly in creative domains like novel writing.

AI in Novel Writing: Enhancing Creativity or Replacing It?

The idea of a person writing a novel with the help of AI is no longer a fantastical thought. Various AI-driven platforms and tools, such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 (and the newer models like GPT-4), have demonstrated impressive capabilities in generating coherent, contextually appropriate, and sometimes even creative text. These AI models can assist writers by drafting paragraphs, suggesting plot ideas, and generating dialogues based on user inputs. In this sense, AI can be seen as a tool to enhance the efficiency of writers and even help overcome writer’s block by providing a starting point or refining the structure of a story.

If an outline is provided—whether by the author or as an initial prompt—AI can develop stories by expanding upon it. For example, an author may outline the key plot points, characters, and settings, and the AI can then generate chapters or scenes that follow these parameters. The AI can weave through subplots, create character dialogues, and maintain thematic consistency, all while adhering to the guidelines set forth by the writer.

In this way, AI serves not as a replacement but as a collaborator in the creative process. Writers can use it to accelerate their writing process, explore multiple narrative paths, or polish rough drafts. AI, in this context, can reduce the time spent on mundane tasks like organizing ideas or crafting descriptions, thus allowing writers to focus on the larger creative vision of the story.

AI’s Ability to Foster Creativity: Can Machines Be Truly Creative?

The question of whether AI can truly be creative is nuanced. Traditionally, creativity is seen as a deeply human trait, rooted in personal experiences, emotions, cultural influences, and a profound understanding of the world. Creativity often involves breaking free from the norm, producing something novel, and interpreting the world in unique ways. AI, on the other hand, works by learning patterns from existing data and then using those patterns to generate outputs.

While AI-generated writing can be impressive and often indistinguishable from human work in terms of language fluency and coherence, the essence of true creativity lies in innovation, intuition, and emotional depth, qualities that AI currently lacks. For instance, AI can generate ideas based on statistical probability, but it does not experience the human condition or have subjective interpretations of life’s complexities. As a result, AI’s creativity is constrained by the data it learns from and cannot go beyond the parameters set by human experience or input.

However, this does not mean AI lacks the potential to enhance or complement human creativity. Consider a scenario where a writer uses AI to explore a specific genre, plotline, or character archetype. While the AI can produce numerous variations of the story based on the input, the human writer remains crucial in shaping the narrative’s emotional depth, philosophical themes, and unique perspectives. In this partnership, AI can function as a tool that extends the boundaries of human imagination, enabling the writer to experiment with new ideas or explore scenarios they might not have considered independently.

Futuristic Thinking: How AI Will Shape Human Work in Creative Fields

AI’s role in the creative industries is expected to evolve dramatically in the coming decades. As AI continues to advance, it may become a more integral part of the creative process, not just as a tool for content generation, but as an active participant in ideation and problem-solving. This could lead to a redefined role for human creators, one that focuses more on curating, refining, and guiding the work AI generates, rather than producing it entirely from scratch.

Consider the potential future of novel writing in this context:

1. Augmented Writing: Writers might collaborate with AI to create detailed characters, intricate plotlines, and complex dialogues in record time. Rather than starting from a blank page, writers could focus on higher-order aspects like emotional arcs, theme development, or philosophical messages, while AI handles the technical elements of the writing process.

2. Personalized Content Creation: AI could be used to craft stories tailored to specific audiences. For example, AI could analyze a reader's preferences, historical reading patterns, and emotional responses to past stories and then create novels that are customized to their tastes, thus revolutionizing the publishing industry by offering readers hyper-personalized experiences.

3. Story Generation for Multiple Mediums: AI could seamlessly generate narratives that are adaptable across various platforms and media. An author could outline a story, and the AI could generate versions of it suitable for novels, screenplays, video games, or even interactive storytelling apps. This could make cross-media storytelling more efficient and accessible, offering fresh opportunities for content creators.

4. Democratizing Creativity: With tools like AI, the barriers to entry in creative fields may lower significantly. Aspiring authors, who might lack the time or resources to fully craft a novel, could use AI as a collaborative partner to bring their ideas to life. This democratization of creativity could lead to a surge of diverse voices and stories, fostering an even more inclusive literary landscape.

What About Emotional and Intuitive Creativity?

The question of emotional and intuitive creativity remains a profound challenge for AI. While AI can mimic patterns of human emotion through learned data, it cannot truly “feel” or “experience” emotions in the way humans do. Emotional resonance in storytelling—such as the portrayal of grief, love, joy, or fear—remains an area where human experience and intuition have an unmatched depth.

In a scenario where a writer is trying to capture the subtleties of human emotion in a scene, AI might produce a technically accurate description, but it may lack the nuance that comes from lived experience. A writer drawing from their personal journey of loss, for example, will be able to evoke a depth of emotion that an AI can only replicate to a limited extent. This gap highlights that while AI can support and enhance creativity, it cannot replace the inherent human ability to create from lived experience and emotional understanding.

Can AI Develop Original Stories?

AI can certainly help develop original stories, but whether these stories can be considered “truly” original in the philosophical sense is debatable. AI generates stories based on patterns learned from vast datasets, which may include novels, scripts, articles, and other forms of written content. While this allows AI to create new combinations and perspectives, these ideas are inherently derivative because they rely on existing data.

Originality, in the purest sense, often involves radical new ideas or the ability to see the world through an entirely different lens—qualities that are deeply linked to human consciousness, experience, and perspective. AI may be able to generate novel combinations of plotlines or themes, but it does so by recombining existing elements in new ways rather than creating something truly unprecedented. The role of AI in originality, therefore, is more about assisting in the creation of new connections or variations, rather than producing groundbreaking, pioneering ideas on its own.

The Future of AI in Creative Fields

In summary, AI will undoubtedly play an increasingly important role in the creative industries, serving as a powerful tool for enhancing efficiency, generating ideas, and expanding the creative possibilities available to writers, artists, and content creators. While AI’s contributions to creativity are undeniable, it is unlikely to fully replace human creativity. Instead, the future may see a collaboration between humans and machines, where AI handles the technical and repetitive aspects of creation, allowing humans to focus on the higher-order, emotional, and philosophical elements that define truly impactful works of art and literature.

AI’s ability to help writers and artists create faster, with more precision, and tailored to specific needs is impressive. However, it is the human experience, intuition, and emotional depth that will continue to be essential to true creativity. The interplay between machine-generated creativity and human intuition will shape the future of storytelling and artistic expression, marking a new era of collaboration rather than competition between humans and machines.

The Corporate World: A Tale of Two Intelligents and 500 Donkeys

In the grand landscape of the corporate world, there exists a peculiar but widely accepted reality—a reality where a handful of "intelligent" individuals hold the reins of power, while the rest, often referred to as "the donkeys," toil away in silence, following orders with no voice of their own.

The Two Intelligents

In every corporate organization, there are a few people—the "intelligents"—who stand out. These individuals are not necessarily the most skilled or the hardest-working, but they possess something far more valuable in the eyes of senior management: influence, connections, or a knack for navigating the complex social dynamics of the office. These "intelligents" are typically well-versed in the art of office politics, capable of making themselves indispensable by aligning with key decision-makers or by appearing to have a deep understanding of the business.

These two intelligents, who may or may not possess the technical expertise required for leadership, are often those who make the major decisions in the organization. Their opinions carry weight, and their choices dictate the direction in which the company moves. They are promoted quickly, receive significant pay hikes, and are praised for their "leadership" abilities, even if their leadership is more about managing relationships than managing results.

The corporate structure, designed to reward ambition and relationships, places these individuals on a pedestal. They have access to exclusive information, are invited to key meetings, and are entrusted with responsibilities that others, who may be more qualified, never see. Their ability to "play the game" allows them to rise swiftly, while their actual contributions to the organization's success often remain secondary.

The 500 Donkeys

Then, there are the 500 donkeys—the vast majority of employees who make the organization run. These individuals do the heavy lifting, the long hours, and the day-to-day tasks that keep the wheels turning. They are the analysts, the engineers, the managers, the administrative assistants—the backbone of the company.

But despite their hard work, dedication, and skill, they are often overlooked in the decision-making process. They are paid well enough to stay but not well enough to inspire loyalty. They follow orders and meet deadlines, day in and day out, without the opportunity to influence the direction of the company. Their role is clear: they exist to serve the decisions made by the intelligents.

The donkeys are, for all intents and purposes, modern-day corporate slaves. They do not question the system because questioning the system risks their jobs. They do not speak out about unfair treatment or favoritism because they fear retaliation or being labeled as troublemakers. They know that their place is to serve, to execute, and to make the intelligents look good. Their performance is often measured by metrics that don't capture the true value of their work—results that can be attributed to the work of the "intelligents," even though they were the ones doing the real work.

The donkeys are rewarded with pay raises and promotions too, but these are usually incremental, slow, and tied to long tenure rather than true merit or achievement. They often find themselves caught in a cycle of mediocrity, watching as others—less qualified but more connected—climb the corporate ladder with ease.

The Culture of the Corporate Farm

This story is not unique to any one company; it is the story of corporate life in many organizations. The culture that allows this system to flourish is built on a set of unspoken rules that prioritize connections, appearances, and loyalty over actual performance and results. The corporate environment becomes a farm, where the intelligents are the shepherds, and the donkeys are the livestock.

This corporate farm thrives on a system of "rewarding loyalty" rather than performance. The intelligents reward those who support them, who align with their personal goals, or who can do the grunt work without question. Promotions and pay raises are given not based on who deserves them but on who has the right relationships or has proven their obedience.

The donkeys, meanwhile, are expected to accept their place. They are the worker bees, the ones who do the actual work that powers the company. But their labor is rarely acknowledged, and their contributions go unnoticed by those at the top. They are kept busy with busywork, so they don't have the time or energy to question why they are being paid less or why someone else—who is less skilled or less dedicated—receives the accolades. The culture of this farm ensures that the donkeys do not rise above their station, not because they lack the potential, but because the system is designed to keep them where they are.

The Silent Rebellion

Over time, however, this system breeds dissatisfaction. The donkeys, even though they may not voice their concerns openly, begin to grow resentful. They see the same individuals, the intelligents, receive promotions and recognition time and time again, while their own contributions are swept aside. They may stay for the paycheck, but the passion they once had for their work fades.

Some donkeys may eventually leave the farm, seeking out organizations where their hard work is valued and rewarded. Others might find themselves burned out, their talents squandered, their enthusiasm drained. As the donkeys become more disillusioned, the intelligents, who have risen to power through influence rather than true ability, may find themselves surrounded by a culture of apathy and disengagement.

The corporation, once driven by innovation, begins to stagnate. Without the fresh ideas and contributions of the donkeys, it slowly loses its competitive edge. And in the end, the intelligents—who have risen to the top through networks and connections rather than merit—may realize that their success was built on a fragile foundation. They have no one to rely on but themselves, and the company begins to crumble from within.

The Price of Unchecked Power

In this corporate story, the system of rewarding the few and exploiting the many is self-perpetuating. The intelligents continue to thrive, fueled by personal influence and the status quo, while the donkeys continue to toil in the shadows, unseen and unappreciated. But the true cost of this culture is the loss of talent, innovation, and loyalty, which eventually leads to the downfall of the organization.

For true progress to be made, a change in culture is needed—a shift from valuing relationships and connections to valuing hard work, merit, and diversity of thought. Only then can the corporate world evolve from a farm of two intelligents and 500 donkeys into a place where everyone, regardless of their background or connections, has an equal opportunity to rise based on their true abilities.

Technical Writing as a Career

Technical Writing can be a great choice for anyone who has passion for writing and has interest to learn and communicate information of the technical world—General Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Bio-medical industry, Aviation, Pharma & Drug Discovery and others into a structured format for the intended audience.

Technical Writers role existed almost in every product industry where they needed to communicate the product information to its internal stakeholders and customers as well. Everywhere either and an engineer, a product specialist, or a documentation specialist took-up this role.

The fact remains unimportant to many of the organization’s biggies that high quality documentation can make a big impact on customer satisfaction. It increases usage, gives more successful implementations, and creates better references and happier customers, which then drive more sales. It is an image-uplifting act which most of the organizations fail to realize. Good documentation can sell even product. You can have competitive advantage over your competitors of having high quality documentation.

Today, the ratio for developers and technical writers are somewhere 20 or 30:1. This is for the obvious reason if the bosses are technical person, they value that art more than anything. That also reflects the poor image one organization has toward its documentation. Organizational chart does not show a progressive look to the technical writers. Many organizations have typically failed to sustain because of the dearth of enough documented archival knowledge, which helps most of the new employees to understand the background of the product.

Although technical writer’s whole job is about communication, they are sometimes the last to hear about future development plans or last-minute changes to a release. Truth is, Tech writers are good advocates for the user, always thinking about the user's point of view and they can make valuable addition in the development of the product.

Technical writers do tend to be arguing for clarity and logic in everything from error messages to how features are implemented. But that's hard to do when you never talk to any customers. Even the customer’s feedbacks are shelved with customer support department, leaving technical writers imaginative on their own.

Technical writing is no black magic and if many feel, anyone can become, they are wrong. English is no short cut, which can be learnt in a year or two like Java or C++. This field is in nascent stage and growing horizontally in sheer numbers. Today, technical writers are joining the band wagon, but it is not too far that these writers would be evaluating and weighing their career goal in terms of their achievement on vertical ladder. Future will hold the platform where technical writers will make it big or break.

White Papers—the Solution Prescription

Often white papers are considered the most effective and standard tool of marketing for most of the technology companies. Since their offerings are new and complex, the technology and solution surrounding them needs to be presented in a way that the business audience could understand as part of their business problem solving and help them take a decision.  More so, a company also write and publishes white papers to—gather leads for the sales force, educate potential customers, media, salesforce or channel partners, influence a selection committee, redefine a market space, build credibility or mindshare, and keep up with competitors.

More so, white paper readers remain in search of potential information that can help them understand an issue, solve a problem, or decide. This often involves learning about the technology, solutions, a case study or features and benefits of a product or service they may consider buying. A survey of IT managers by Forbes.com and Bitpipe (now TechTarget) showed that 76 percent of them read white papers to stay on top of new trends, 69 percent to get information about products and vendors, 50 percent to compare products, 42 percent to help justify buying decisions, and 33 percent to develop a shortlist of qualified vendors.

Eventually, a client also is unlikely to commit to an expensive and complicated product or project until they first have all the facts. They'll probably hold meetings with other people in their organization to assess about the offering. Therefore, the more compelling information they have at their fingertips about your company and what it offers, the better the chances of you closing the sale.

In a nutshell it is a report, which addresses a problem and then presents a solution. White papers were first published by the British government in the early 20th century. They explained government proposals for new policies and legislation and are still used for that purpose to this day.

However, since the early 1990s, they have become a tool for business—to—business (B2B) marketing. They are heavily used by IT companies as their products tend to be expensive and complicated. But, increasingly, management consultancies, engineering firms, banks, lawyers and others selling to businesses are using them as well. This is not surprising. White papers are ideal for explaining everything from new manufacturing processes through to the impact of new government rules on business.

What little data there is on the use of white papers seems to suggest they are being increasingly adopted by businesses to support marketing.

Some 61% of businesses involved in B2B marketing already use white papers, according to the US-based Content Marketing Institute. Marketing Sherpa, another US institute, reckons white papers are probably the most important tool for those marketing to businesses.

White papers tend to be long documents packed with useful arguments and data. They're usually written by experienced in-house or freelance copywriters. But to resonate with their intended audience they must be written objectively and present genuine solutions to real problems.

Sometimes, a common mistake is to pepper these documents with sales hype. This is not the place to do that. It undermines the credibility and value of your arguments. To write a good white paper—identify a key problem faced by your customers and explain how it can impact them such as lost market share, cost increases or reputational damage. Describe other approaches and solutions to this problem that have been used and point out their limitations. Now present your solution and address how it has helped other companies and why it works. Describe in detail, preferably with numbers, demonstrating the scale of improvements. Then round-up with a conclusion. Wherever possible, back your arguments using research and statistics from respected third parties such as government agencies and trade associations. This builds credibility.

A truly good white paper is educational and even groundbreaking. It should have your prospects nodding in agreement as they read it. They should come away better informed and believing that you clearly know their problem and understand how to fix it.

A well-produced white paper also places you as the go-to-expert in your field. That not only helps justify buying from you, but possibly paying a premium, as your company's expertise makes you a safer bet to do business with.

If you happen to be writing a white paper, these points can help you build your strategy to achieve the real intent of its publication.

Job Description

A candidate goes to an IT company for a interview. For the first round he is given written test what he was able to answer in less than the time he was allotted. Then he goes for his personal round of interview and he answers all the questions up to the satisfaction of the panelists. The final round of interview happens with HR and they tell him that they will inform him the outcome of the interview after taking the consent of all the stakeholders.

After several days of waiting, the candidate calls up the HR to know about the outcome of the interview. HR replies that he was not been selected and the reason was given that he was over qualified. He was amused and could not understand what is called overqualified when the position requires a person to be matching to the job description and clearing successfully all the skill tests whatever is required out of him.

Somehow, he gets hold on to a panelist to know as to how they felt that he was overqualified for the position. After the panelist went round about several times repeating same dialogues from the recalled memory, he understood why he was over qualified.

He was able to clear the test with high score where his panelists wanted him to struggle and score 40 -50%. He was able to answer all their questions and they didn’t have any more questions to ask. In fact they wanted him to know less than them. Why so? None of the bosses want to be challenged by his subordinates in terms of knowledge, skills or management. Otherwise their existence will be at stake.

Therefore, they always select a person who will be less knowledgeable, less skilled and dumb headed who will carry out their orders. And do not reason out, never ask any questions and will always say “Yes Boss”.

This is the story of most of the work place where two intelligent person and 500 donkeys slough every day. Job descriptions are actually a filter mechanism to filter out most eligible person and keep them aside. If you are adjudged by HR as match with job description by 100% and get a call for the interviews, be assured you get the ego of the panelists.

Frankly speaking, your job search today is a hit or a miss. Sometimes, you land up in an interview and you feel that interviewer does not know the requirement of the profile. Many a times, they look for a person who knows everything to an expert level. Many a times they look for a multi skilled person whether they have such requirement or not. Many a times they look for a follower. However, the job description remains the same for everything.

Morale of the story is, never believe in Job Description. Even the person who writes the Job description, he or she, also might not know for whom they are writing. Several times it’s just copied and pasted without checking the relevance. After many years of working, I have not come to know a fool proof way to land up in a job of your choice.  Rightly so, because it’s the job, for which you are employed and not the one, which you would like to be in. These are two different things. Often, we forget and mix them.

Guidelines for the Bullet Points

My exploration’s first stop was oxford dictionary to discover bullet points. It describes, “Bullet points are used to draw attention to important information within a document so that a reader can identify the key issues and facts quickly.” Bullet points are visually attractive and make it easy for a reader to locate important information.

Some other says, “A 'bullet point' is an item introduced by a dot ("bullet") or a similar icon to retrieve information fast.” There are no fixed rules about how to use them, but there are some guidelines.

The bullet points are used to list features, steps, or tips, just like the following list:

• The text introducing the list of bullet points should end with a colon.
• If the text that follows the bullet point is not a proper sentence, it doesn’t need to begin with a capital letter and it shouldn’t end with a full stop, for example:
• Today's discussion includes:
  --Issues of scanty rains across the regions
  --Climate change over the sub-continent

(However, there is an exception to this; if the bullet items are independent of each other, it should be started with capitalization. Otherwise also, it may start with capitalization)

•  Lists of bullet points shows more impact if each one begins with the same word class (or part of speech) and if they are all of a similar length. Action verbs are a good choice for the first word, i.e., verbs that describe the performing of an action. If you use verbs, ensure that each one is in the same tense.
• Emphasizing the first few words of the bullet points capture the main idea. You can use bold type, italics, or underlining for emphasis.
• Make bullet points consistent in structure, such as, make all of them sentences or fragments or questions.

(However, if you have two sets of bullet points in a document, you don't need to make them consistent with each other--just within themselves.)

• Be consistent in punctuating bullets, i.e., if one bullet ends with a period (full stop), end all with a period, following these rules:
  --Remember:
      a. If all bullets are sentences, end each one with a period (full stop).
      b. If all bullets are phrases or fragments, use no end punctuation.
• Do not use semicolon to end bullet points. This is an old age fashion and no more in use today.
• Avoid making bullet points that look like paragraphs. Three lines is a reasonable maximum length.
• Avoid having bullet points more than five (itemized).
• Number bullet points when you have many--more than five or so. Most of the steps of a process to complete a task or procedure will have such bullets.
• Avoid using transition words and phrases such as "and" or "or", “secondly”, “another point” etc. These are unnecessary and doesn’t help user rather they confuse them.
• Judiciously use bullet points in relation, especially if there are a lot of them. If the bullets contain a blend of domestic and wild animals, break them into two lists, with one labeled domestic animals and another labeled wild animals.
• Avoid bullet points when you want to build rapport or deal with a sensitive issue. Bullets communicate efficiency rather than warmth.
• Create clean and legible bullet fonts and be consistent. Avoid mixing many fonts and layouts.

These are some of the broader points what anyone should remember while using bullet points in the documents. However, there would be still some doubts which would need clarifications.

If the bullets are not punctuated in between, there should not be a period at the end of the last bullet.

On capitalization issue, reference books differ on this question. "The Gregg Reference Manual" capitalizes all bullets. "The Chicago Manual of Style" capitalizes bulleted fragments only when they are in numbered lists. So if you were to use fragments with simple bullets (no numbers), "Chicago" would advise you to make them lower case. Most of us would like to follow "Gregg" because it shows the consistency of all bullet points being capitalized.

The use of bullet for just one item runs into controversy and many agree to use as single bullet and many counter saying that bullet should be used only for list items. It’s a question of your judgment and possibly your list might have only one item.

While I spent too much time explaining my junior colleagues about the use and guidelines of bullet points, it came to my mind that it might make life easier for many people who are into writing industry. Especially the ones, who are new to the structured writing, might benefit immensely.

The Bullets Point

Technical documents which are jargan free, written in simple English, comprehensible even by low level English reader, has evolved many ways to disseminate information more directly than deciphering them from long winded sentences. One such evolution has been the use of bullet points in the documents. While the use of bullet points has immensely benefited the learner, it has also created a confused state, misconception, and problem for the technical writers as to how, where, and when to use the bullet points in the document.

The use of bullet points in the documents has been so spurious that writers have more likely decided to use them for any kind of information. Whether the information can be used in fragmented format as bullet points or not; that has not been a part of wise decisions. Writers sometimes forget that some information which can be better described in a proper sentence can not be used as bullet point. All that they want is to see more bullet points. Their understanding of using more bullet points is somehow an assumption to consider ‘more the bullet points, better the document’. In turn, more the bullet points; information is better understood.

The paradox is when a writer can not make a judgment whether to communicate information in bullet format or not, goes ahead and tries to make any or all information in bulleted formats. This is doing more harm than good. The obvious question comes in mind; what is the concept and principle behind creating bullet points in a document.

I got introduced with the concept of using bullet points in the documents when I became a part of the technical writing community and started authoring technical documents. Even though I was introduced to bullet points, I was not very comfortable using them in the documents but moreover made it a practice referring its usage as prescribed in the style guides.

My main referring style guide remain the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications (MSTP) at large but used some other Style Guides too, that were specific to the employer’s documentation requirement. These style guides only provide you the directions as to what items and how they should be used in the bullet. To be more precise, the steps to complete a task or procedure are used in the bulleted points either in itemized or numbered format. In short, bullet points define lists; however, not all lists should be defined by bullets. This can be tricky when you are not exposed to the concept and logic behind the usage.

After a few years of work as a technical author, I got the opportunity to be a reviewer and editor. My job as reviewer and editor was not only to correct the documents but provide even tips for the writers to improve the documents. It is the job of not only mending the documents but minding and mentoring the writers who work along with you or whose job you are reviewing. You need to provide answers for all what, when, where, why and how of the corrections made to the documents.

Even after my long odyssey with the technical publication, I realized – The Bullet Points are the bullets point for me and I hardly know them well. Then my journey began to explore, discover, invent and re-invent the bullet points. While I explored and gained some of the knowledge for better use of the bullet points I thought to share which can be useful. You can visit my next post on this.

Content Reuse If You Use

Content reuse works well in an environment when it is written once and used whenever and wherever it can be used. Industry experts and specialist who are in favour of content reuse, speculate and visualize that it enhances consistency and usability with reduce costs to write and review contents.

The major benefit of content reuse is saving by reduced cost for producing contents. But how much would the content reuse work for your environment and how much would it reduce the cost, is what you need to decide while implementing the content reuse strategy. If you are looking to analyze how much you will save then you will also need to know how much it will cost. Simple way out is to assess the situation by simple calculation with cost consideration and forecasting the possible benefits.

In technical communication, the utmost priority is to serve your users and user satisfaction always impacts the documentation decisions. Practically, the goal of technical communication is to increase user satisfaction by improving content quality. But, sadly, it is difficult to measure the quality.

Following are some of the points, you can consider to measure if you want the content reuse strategy at place:

• Identifying tasks and time spent to complete them – Simple way would be to consider creation of 30 pages of technical documentation with hours spent on creation of a page, multiplied by the total number of the pages and an additional cost on review, editing and translation.

• Estimation of percentage of content reuse – Estimation by analyzing the document would give you an idea as to how much percentage of the contents you can reuse and how much you can save.

• Time require to analyze the content for reuse

• Time require to create your content specially for reuse

• Investment on Content Management System (CMS), authoring tools or file server to store the reusable content

• Training for authors on tools, technology and process for content reuse

However, if your reuse strategy improves content, reducing calls to support, then you can calculate savings. To be able to accurately quantify user satisfaction, you will need to link the reduced support calls to the improved documentation.

Technical Writers Training

The profession of technical writing is no more an isolated domain of west. The past decades have ushered the emerging numbers of technical writers in India too. To those who have not come across this profession or this opportunity, technical writing is the art and science of writing about the technical subjects to help end users of the technology.

Most often the requirement of becoming a technical writers demands advanced knowledge of English writing. In fact the good knowledge of English writing holds good to comprehend complex technical knowledge into simple English writing that helps user to understand the technology. But don’t get misguided that to be a technical writer you need to have prior experience of journalism or mass communication or a post graduate degree in English. If you have flare for writing in English and if you can write simple and crisp English, you are in the league. However, if you are transitioning from Journalism or have a post graduate degree in English, you will have an edge. Yet again, I would say that writing is more of an art than science and it can be anyone’s passion.

Today, the opportunity in the market requires you to be good in English. Many companies would prefer you to be on-board and train you in the technical writing on job. Most others would like to have a person who has some exposure of technical writing and knowledge of styles and tools of the trade.

The technical writing training offered by different institutes in different parts of the country exposes you on the knowledge of the following:

• Different style guides of technical writing
• User guide authoring and publishing tools
• Help authoring and editing tools
• Image editing and designing tools
• Classroom sessions on procedure and instruction writing
• A glimpse of different kinds of documents written by a technical writer
• The different technological domain in which technical writers are getting employed
• Creating a sample documents  

The training institutes are meant to teach technical writing and not English writing. You will be disappointed if you think that they can teach you technical writing without you knowing English writing. However, you can complement your average level of writing skills with the expert level of authoring tool knowledge which often required in trouble shooting and that makes you a production specialist.

If you have good skills of writing and preliminary knowledge of authoring tool, getting a job as a technical writer will not be tough. Today, almost all the industry driven by technology requires technical writers into their fold. Being a trained technical writer would greatly enhance your chances of getting a job.

The Painstaking Target Blogging

Blogging can be a fun and thought sharing as long as it remains under your control on your personal blog sites. But can be a painful exercise if you are asked to blog for certain sites for the targeted audience. Its no more a pleasure writing because you are tied up with a boundary and limitations. Overall you need to do a lot more thinking before you publish it. Even then, you would never be contented about the quality of the content.

The major shift from the personal blogging towards the target blogging is the lack of knowledge about the different subjects you are ought to put up a post. It might not be an interesting subject or a topic what you might have been asked to write. Secondly you are not the subject matter expert to enlighten the audience with your expert advice or suggestions. To write such kind of posts you are required to gather knowledge in various ways.

Personal blogging does not need such efforts. While you think of a post your new ideas are there in your mind and writing is far easier. You can draw parallels about your experiences and leverage your knowledge within this post. Additionally you can have your personal point of view too.

The target blogging is not personally opinionated; rather it carries the articulated marketing thoughts which needed to be pierced through the blogs into the audience mind. It has professional zeal and vibration to woe the audience without any controversies. It is a collective thought and not the independent thinker’s voice.

It is because of all this when I write a blog post for one of my acquaintances as a professional blog writer I sometimes fail to meet the commitments. I really need to work hard to be in the customize shoes at times. But that again is a part of the professional blog writing.

Nevertheless, whatever personal touch you try to give into the targeted blog, it still remains behind your personal blogging as an interest.

You are paid for your efforts

Most of us have transitioned into technical writing from a non writing career or from a different writing career. Obviously we try to gauge ourselves as a technical writer based on our English writing skills adhering to the different styles of technical writing. In the course of time we try to compete with our colleagues on better writing skills and try to position ourselves in the team and look for progression in the career.

This holds true if we are treated as a technical writer as an individual contributor. This also requires us to know all the other aspects of technical writing other than writing alone, such as authoring tool proficiency, skills to interact with the subject matter experts, and little bit of knowledge of estimation of the work and planning and meeting delivery schedule. However, having all in a person is quite a challenge at a time.

Technical writers’ jobs do not always require writing only. There are different kinds of documentation need and a technical writer’s work is driven by the requirement. For example, if a document is required to be re-branded, you hardly need to do any writing job. Similarly, if a document is to be updated for the revisions, you just need to write a few sentences or a few paragraphs to add into the documents. If the document is to be created into a different format your job is to use same content into the new format.

You are lucky, if you are associated with writing a new document wherein you can show your writing skills to your fullest capacity. Yet again, the document goes through several reviews for technical accuracies and language hygiene. This is done by other technical experts and fellow technical writer as a reviewer.

Although, the great job of writing of the document is done by a technical writer alone, but is it right to take entire credit for writing the document. For completeness of the document, others too contribute immensely.

Whereas, in a team setup, the competence and skills of all the team members are recognized based on one superior skill and team largely depend on that individual to fulfill that need. May be that person might not be a good writer, but he/she can be a good authoring tool specialist, a good trouble shooter, a good leader, a good technical person or a good graphic designer or a good communicator. Therefore, even for one deliverable, the efforts of all the individuals accounted equally.

Once, one of my colleagues said, “We are paid for our efforts.” As an immediate thought I realized that being a technical writer he is passing the buck and trying to cover for his incompetence in writing. Later, it haunted me loudly and reality seems to be true. The best of the work is achieved by team work and it consists of every team member’s best efforts.

May be, my freelancer friends would have different opinion on this but as a part of the team and working in a corporate setup, this is the reality.

Technical Writer as a User

The name technical writer suggests about a person who writes the technical documents for the user, which helps them using the product. More often than not, when the user struggles to find out the answers of their problem in using the product, they seek the help from the support group. Obviously, users don’t find the answer of their problems in the documents, which were shipped to them along with the product.

The standard procedure followed to analyse the user’s problem and leading them to learn the product to use are not based on the realistic approach. Neither feedback system revamps the standard procedure in the next revision of the documents. The revision only includes the recent addition in the features and functionality. But most of the time even users also do not like to send their feedback on the documents. May be because of the perceived idea that their feedback will not be taken care or the life cycle of the product is so short that they understand that revamps are not possible.

In any case, it does not help documentation to improve. Therefore, sometimes technical writers, who are to be blamed for the sub-standard documentation, finds even user responsible for this cause. In a normal scenario, a technical writer assumes to be a user and interprets the knowledge transfer in a best suitable way they can. But, that may not be the simple way of translating the knowledge what user would have liked to be. I really bet, the understanding level and approach of different users differ immensely. That is how, even the understanding and use of an authoring tool widely differs among the technical writers too. Some are easily able to use the tool, whereas some takes time to learn and use.

I can understand that each one of us has different learning curves and that reflects while even using an authoring tool. Nevertheless, when a technical writer struggles to learn the tool using the Help or the User manual and finds it tough to get their answers, even then they would not like to send the feedback to the corresponding writers group. If they do so, hopefully, it might help improve adding those points in the next version of the product that could help another writer avoid rigors of tough learning.

Ideally, it could be better to list down the questions, which could be included in the User Manual or in the Help and send across to the product company as feedback. And I suppose during the next version as an update even these new answers could feature into the document. Therefore, as a user, it’s a best way to help our fellow writers and help improve even the documentation on the community level. Otherwise, we will continue writing the documents as we usually do and get overwhelmed thinking that we have produced the best. But, in reality, we will not be serving the user, for which we are paid for. Its time we don the role of a writer when we are writing the manual and take the role of a user when we use a product. At the end of the day we should not forget to send and receive feedback which would lead us to help and get help on our documents.

Redundancy in User Documentation

End user documentation in software industry, to me, sometimes looks redundant. I have had the opportunity to work in few of the software companies which develop software application. As a part of the end user documentation, following documents are prepared to ship with the application:

• Release Notes

• Installation

• User Guide

• Web-Help

• Admin Guide

• Tutorials

The release notes specify different features and version of the software in the particular release, whereas the installation guide describes about the system requirements and stepwise installation procedures of the Software. Sometimes, it discusses about the architecture of the software too, for the better understanding of its compatibility with hardware and other software for operational efficiency. These are the useful information contained in these documents.

Admin guide is another document which takes you through the functionality and features that helps in administering the software. Sometimes, you, as an end user can act as an admin too. In another cases, like in enterprises solution software, there are different individuals who would be responsible for acting as admin.

WebHelp is another documents prepared as one of the applications, to be integrated with the software which comes handy to understand the functionality of the software. The content created with this application contains various web pages linked with hyperlinks with each other and can be navigated through a table of contents. In this, the contents are created keeping in mind the task based approach. Even the particular windows of the software can be linked with particular web pages which are called context sensitive. This entire application is integrated with Help menu of the top menu bar of the home page of the software.

Ideally, the user guides are created to take a walk-through of the software with the minute details. The approach is to focus on every bits and pieces of information about the structure and functionality of the software. However, some of the information contained herein are already discussed in the WebHelp. The tutorial again has the mixed contents of WebHelp and user guide.

Therefore, user guide, WebHelp and tutorials contain approximately 50-60% of similar contents. Some of the software application has exactly the same content in user guide as well as in WebHelp. Only the format of display is different. In industry, it is called single sourcing. The idea is to write once and display in different formats.

Can we call it as effective documentation? In my opinion, certainly not! Because end user find almost redundant contents in these document. The time is come to realize this and give the user the documents which is useful for them. Otherwise, tradition will continue as it is said that a user never reads or consult the documents shipped to them along with the software.

Truly, if user does not find the answers he is looking into the document then definitely he would never consult them. This throws open a question on our credibility of being a technical writer asking whether we are doing our job keeping user in mind or not. This also shows that we are writing a document which is not useful for the users. Well, are we only fulfilling a regulatory requirement or ready to help users?

Remember, being a technical writer we are also a user of the documents that we refer in day today life while working with different software applications. Incidentally, how do you feel when some of your questions does not fetch you answer from the integrated help or user guide on that product? You feel even disappointed when the topic is there but if it is not well explain to guide you to complete a task. You definitely blame the technical writers for sloppy job done. This is a great feedback for you to be self motivated to treat your user valuable and think of the documents which will help them. But not load them with unnecessary documents, which will make them dump these without even looking at them.

So, be creative and use your wisdom.

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.

The Recession hit me!

Recession! This is the most frightening word for the working class. In the fast pace of economy when the global race is towards building robust nation, jobs for millions of educated, semi-skilled, and skilled persons, and supporting livelihood for the dependent families, takes a halt, all of a sudden. Everything, which was looking rosy, becomes gloomy. A depressed, anxiety filled environment with no certainty of future ambition and career, looms large. The downturn of economy keeps us silent, guessing and waiting for it to revive again. For commoners, it is very difficult to understand as to why does recession hit. However, even if we understand we can not avoid once it hits.

I have been the witness of three recessions in my small working career of 14 years. My own industry’s failure in nineties to sustain further left me to fend for my own to look for the alternative option of livelihood. At the same period, the dotcom bubble burst, threw away thousands of software techies on the roads to look for a fresh start. My own industry’s recession was far less in magnitude than the dotcom failures. We were in thousands whereas the software techies were quite greater in numbers. The techies who had gone to USA on H1B visa in the prospect of earning and making their career successful were denied jobs and came back home with the lost face.

The roads were wide open but neither those techies nor I knew where to go or where those roads end. Most of the occasions, I found myself trying my luck for the same place where even techies were ready to give a try. Knowing clearly well that none of us can be lucky every time and the job we can get is of our choices. We were compromising with our aspirations, aims, and career. It needed lots of self assurance to bounce back again and keep trying. Not many could take up the challenge of the grind. Some of my own colleagues surrender to the fate and kept hoping that something happening for them rather than taking things in their hand and trying. Some of the techies whom I knew went into depression and mental instability. It was really a tough time. But tough time passes off and tough people survive. Yes! All those who fought their battle with tough time, survived and I too survived with a paltry job to make my living in the hope of rising again.

Toiling hard with aim of building my career again I joined the race of techies too in the years to come and became part of the software industry as a writer. Yet, another worst hit recession came as a part and parcel of down turn of the economy in 2008. The hype, the false hope and the greed of achieving higher and faster have failed the principle of economics. The miseries are unimaginable. The present recession of 2008 is continuing. We did not learn the lesson from our past mistakes.

It is going to be the end of 2009 and speculations are high that the industry is reviving and jobs are going to be back again. Yet, clear and visible signs are not to be seen as to how the industry is going to do in the coming year. Amidst the recession monster biting bitterly, the tryst of the employees to save their jobs have been the one and only aim than to be aggressive on their job and perform brilliantly. Tough time has shown that how individual employee behaves in the difficult times. To safeguard their own interest people have gone to the level of betrayal, back biting, snatching working credits and bad mouth. This has been the common phenomena of the working place. Be it the company, which boasts of their great working culture and open door policy or the smaller companies, employees have shown their character alike.

Common professional goal were not the goals of the employee, which could sustain the company and do well even during the recession. The obvious results were that the hard workers got axed and so called smart workers retained due to the cost saving. It hit me and all of those who believes in doing their best by virtue of hard work. This recession have taught many of us that being smart worker is better than hard worker. But, we have also been taught that there is no alternative of hard work. The question is whether to be smart worker, steal some body’s work and take the credit or be the hard worker, take the challenge and perform to the best of our skills. Of course my conscience and morale will not let me fall into the first category of smart worker, but definitely I would strive hard to protect my interest and try to get my due credit at the work place. This recession is not going to change my character and for that sake any recession is not going to change my character. It is because of our character and morale we could face any of the recessions and come out successful.

Why Technical Writing

The mesmerizing beauty of words looks beyond the fascinating world, fathoms into the deep oceans and searches the hidden treasure at the bottom of the sea. It goes deeper into soul searching, unveils the untold story, captivates the whirlwind of the emotional mind; find many such things which are ruthless and disturbing yet find meaning when it is narrated. However, there are writings which do not relate to any of such things and technical writing could be one of them.

Technical writing as my present profession, I do not have vast experience writing user manual, online help, tutorials, release notes, admin guides, install guides and quick start guides, just to name a few. I came into technical writing by accident or call it by chance. Again from non-writing career to writing career was also merely luck. As a freelancer I had chances of getting published quite a number of times before I got a break into writing career. But these publications never gave me slightest of idea that I too can make writing a career. When hit by the recession in my non-writing career, I thought of doing many things to make my living but writing was no where closer to my thought even in dreams. This could be because I never thought that I can make it as a career primarily due to the fact that I was not able to assess my ability to write for a living. Though I love writing, I never believed that I could write well. So, one fine morning when I realized that I had little money to last beyond few days to feed me, I thought of giving it a shot and then figured out a small advertisement in the newspaper seeking freelance writer.

I went straight away to meet the editor and after a small introduction he agreed to give me a try. He gave me a topic and asked me to deliver the write-up within a couple of days. The first draft of the write-up was impressive and he asked me to work on it in detail and with final typeset and proofreading he made it the cover feature of the magazine. That made up my confidence and I realized that I can do it. Then on writing has been able to sustain me, feed me, and give me a place among the professionals. Well the freelancer tags remained just for a few months initially and I got a break into a monthly magazine which gave me a platform to regularly contribute to the magazine, liaison with resource people, do public relation job, organize press meet and be the part of the other press meet too. Pressman’s job had always fancied me from the beginning but I never knew the rigours of their hard work and pittance pay cheque. All I had seen was the glamorous few big names in the industry who are idolized enjoying the life of journalism profession. But at the same time the larger mass kept on toiling just to get even recognized and forget about getting their due.

The big names were not only wonderful writers but powerful speaker, manipulators, shrewd detectives, and good in powerful public relations. Yes! The journalism career is mixed of all this. Even one element is missing in you; it can get others taking over you. You can remain a good writer but can never be a good journalist. In case if you are coming from an orthodox background and can not mixed with the polluted surroundings and the corrupt people, better re-look into yourself what you want from journalism. It is not everyone’s bait. Well, with brief stint of so called journalism career, I had disagreement umpteen times with my peers and the editors, managed and survived, cajoled and cowed down. In between all this, as the mind found solace of being in the writing world, hunger haunted continuously. I could hardly sustain the taunt of happy mind and empty stomach.

Then I realized, hunger can not breed the beauty of words. Search and the alternatives are two things which can give insight to look beyond the horizon. First, I off loaded the journalism tag to become a medical writer, then an academic writer for shorter period of one year each. But both these in the silicon city of India without realizing that even the silicon industry would be hiring writers to work for their task force. And these writers would be called technical writers.

Kudos to naukri dot com, which made inroads as online job portal and gave an opportunity for the job seekers to post their profile free of cost. Similarly it gave the opportunity for the employers to look for the potential employee from the data base. I too posted my profile and to my luck, looking at my previous writing experience, one prospective software employer wanted to test my ability to see whether I can fit into their basket.

There was a written test, a technical test and the face to face interview, to see whether I can learn things faster and implement that into the work. And that’s how I wore the tag of a technical writer. The very question, do you like technical writing, sometimes puts me off. I do not like to answer this question being my true self. But often this question keeps on coming to successive interviews and I ought to answer this. However, how often you can lie. This question becomes the part of the recorded test which is done by pen and paper. Initially you makeover, wear a mask, try lying, misleading and boasting that you love technology and you want to write about it. But not longer you can lie to yourself. True, I like writing but may not be technical writing. Then why do I become a technical writer.

The answer is, it gives me money and status of being a successful writer, where I can boast that my writing sells. My writing has value for money. My writing is part of the requirement; it is not just the fanciful world of time pass. My writing helps people complete a task; my writing helps people understand a software or hardware product. It is truly meaningful and that’s what gives me satisfaction of being a technical writer. I might aspire to create different piece of writing of my choice but in my professional work sphere I am just a technical writer and I value writing the technical manuals. Some times when I ponder upon thinking what to say when people ask me about my profession. I can definitely say, I am a writer and a technical writer specialist.