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.

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.

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.

1,160,000,000 hits for “why style guides?”

I casually gave a search in the smartest search engine ‘Google’ to take a dig about the need of style guides. It produced 1,160,000,000 results. The total number of search generated, definitely guarantees the importance of style guides but at the same time these numbers do not justified the relevance of the content what I was looking for. Nevertheless, even if I narrow down my search, I am sure I am going to get quite large number of sites which will have message for me about the style guides.

Why style guides? Do we really need it? The answer from most of the technical writers is going to be ‘yes’ in all cases. This is the approach of any technical writer to produce documentation conforming to the elements of writing to be consistent across all the documents of same nature. For publications or companies with a large number of contributing writers, a style guide is essential if the end product has to look alike.

Style guide becomes important for technical writing, commercial or business writing, journalism, web copy writing and many other forms of publications. In all these cases, to ensure the consistent writing style, guidelines are usually published. This allow writers to contribute avoiding their personal element of style but to adhere to the style of publication, company or website.

A style guide provides a means of documenting basic rules or features of the writing. For technical writers a style guide for a particular customer or project is to ensure that the data they deliver is in acceptable form and in consistent to the previous deliveries or other publications that the customer already has.

The style guides differs depending upon company, publication, customer because of the fact that there is no single authoritative source on styles for written English. The use of punctuation and correct grammar is well established and clear but style is much more than just the correct usage of punctuation, grammar and vocabulary.

Style can define many different aspects such as document structure, paragraph numbering and indentation, the use of headings, the use of lists, trademark or branding considerations, sentence lengths, layout, font sizes, depth of treatment of a subject, spelling (UK v US for example), readership considerations, use of abbreviations, terminology, the use of symbols, and voice preferences (active v passive).The list could go longer too. The fact is creative writers may not be worried about these listed items, whereas a technical writer will have to heed to all of these defined styles.

For a writer who is associated with a company or publication will follow the guided principles laid down by the employer but the real challenge is for Freelance writers. Freelance writers should continually evolve style guides for each customer or publication type.

Most of the creative writers love using their own styles. Nothing is wrong about that but if they only follow certain amount of styling consistently the job of proofreading and reviewing becomes easier. That is why sometimes the publisher prescribes certain guidelines to send your write-ups in the particular format and use defined styles. Failing which even if your write-up is brilliant, it will not see the light of the day.

Some of the writers would still disagree to follow the style guides. For them, ‘long live imagination, bury the style guides’ may be the catch line. You too can fall into this category if you are not tied up as a contract technical writer being on the payroll of a company. Technical writing is structured writing and it demands certain style guides to be followed.

Changing Time for Technical Writers

Technical documentation can take a spiral web of describing complex concept and special terminology to suit the specific audience. Although, this is a well known fact, but to transform your writing from the simple steps writing for a procedure to describe a scientific concept in cutting edge technology, which is just defining, could take a tough toll at time. Visibly for a new writer, it could be nightmare to understand the subject and write about them. Even for that matter, the experienced writers would struggle.

However, understanding of the subject and relating the entire steps, procedures and concepts into a meaningful perfect document is the real challenge for a technical author to test their writing ability. The very purpose of creating document is to preserve the knowledge to use for the larger audience or the customers. These customers could be the internal or the external ones. The aim of the documents changes according to the requirements. If you thought that technical writing means writing Users Guide, Installation Guide and Help files, then this is the time to think once again thoroughly and understand the requirement of technical writers in the industry. Probable you will not be restricted to writing these manuals only. You will be tested writing many more things such as requirement documents, white papers or the technical articles. Technical writer’s job is not merely going to be defined as about writing guides.

If you look at the entire job spec, which is slowly becoming clear, I bet, industry will have really tough time getting good writers. All those who thought that technical writing is all about knowing few of the writing and publishing tools and to know how to write a user manual then its better track your career now unless it is too late to mend your ways. When I made transition into technical writing knowing word processing and publishing tools were supposed to be the most important requirement. Now that is dying down, rather corporations have learnt that tool can be taught but not the art of writing.

Many consider technical writing as an art as well as a science. It is true that technical writing alone can not be an art because if you do not understand the science and technology about which you are supposed to write, it can not make you fare well. You can not consider it science either, even if you are convinced that it is based on style guides for paragraph, page layout and graphics unless you are able to present the information as the weaver of the words. To me, technical writing is an art to write about the science. I am sure; all of us will have different way of defining it and opine our voices on this subject.

One more aspect which is conceived arbitrarily is the concept that technical writers get knowledge from the subject matter expert and transform that knowledge into simple, legible and easy information for the end users. Domain hardly plays any barrier for the writers because knowledge is preserved into the written format by the subject matter experts and they too are available for any discussion or clarification whenever required. This is the normal way of functioning of the large corporation where every thing is documented because of fear that the employees leave jobs without passing the full information and knowledge to the juniors and colleagues. The cost involved in the process and the time required is such that many a time it deviates the product release. The seer fact is that people who are forced to write these documents do not have good skills of writing and quite natural that it would take more time yet you can not be sure of quality. This does not include exceptions.

The smaller organization, which recognize this fact stresses that if a developer is involved in writing so many documents then they should very well write the user documents too. They believe that in such cases the role of a Technical Writer is just to collate and present the information in a better way. Definitely language cleaning is another area where more emphasis is given. But this is not all that expected from a technical writer. According to them, technical writer should collect the information on their own with different sources and that would let developer write only such information which can be understood by the fellow developer and in turn that will give them more time to complete their job faster. Subsequently technical writer will write the document, which will allow them to be involved more to understand the subject and in the process they would be enriching their knowledge in the domain.

One more concept, which suggests that a technical writer should not worry more about the domain, seems relatively not to be a good idea. “The domain knowledge is not necessary, wherever they go, they learn the terms of the trade”, sounds bit odd to me. Meaning you work in telecommunication domain and tomorrow you make a change in life science domain, I precisely feel the time taken to understand the new domain would put you back for some time. It could even be a bottleneck to prove your effectiveness in writing if you have not assessed it early. It might also hamper your growth too in a new setting because you are going to be rated freshly in a new environment. Well, this again is a personal preference, some can manage everything well and for some this could really pose a problem. The advice is to look at your strength and act.

For small product development company, “Speed” is the hallmark and that puts them in advantageous position comparing its larger adversaries, which ride on the back up of money, manpower and management. Looking at the scenario it seems that it is testing time for the technical writers to prove their worth in changing environment. Otherwise also if the industry has to be dependent upon the technical writers, they need to be mature enough to handle different situation. Ideally if they are able to handle such situation the pay cheque would not be a constraint. So, the catch is “show your competence to prove yourself”.

The opportunities in writing career

Wordsmiths were never in demand so much as they are now. Call it an opportunity because of the Internet. In fact, Internet is nothing but all about the content. Better the content on web, better is the traffic and higher is the ranking. Its all about how many visitors visit your site and rate your content. Thats how Internet works for anything and everything. Beyond, there is much more to it. But, of course, the contents are specific related to the subject. However, the core skill is to write it in legible language and present that in to a form that even six-grade reader can understand well.

If I am not wrong, traditionally writers were highly sought after in the Journalism, that too in print Journalism and publication as an editor or a proofreader. But with the advent of Internet the horizon has grown beyond the country and community. A writer can be anywhere and can be writing for anyone in any part of the world. An Indian writer can get published by an American publisher in America.

Similarly, there are many form of writing which is used to be done by some of the subject expert in the field is now at offering to the professional writers because of fast paced, time bond target to finish a project. A professional writer can always add value to the document. Speed, accuracy, good style, and grammatically correctness in language are the business assets for the writer who can make difference in today’s world.

Based on the Industry they work and kind of writing they pursue, writers can be classified into some major categories, yet these are not all. There may be many more tag that might be in making depending upon the kind of writing they would be pursuing in the future. Some of them are:

Journalist: Traditionally they are the writers, who write for different news papers, news magazines and are supposed to be the eye and ear of people and government. People expect them to carry their voice to the government or the concerned authority in need. Similarly government needs them to reach to the people with right kind of message. From the ages Journalists have been respected and has a great reputation and command in the society. However, very few have lived up to their expectation. In today’s media influencing world, they are highly in demand but their reputation are challenged, because of patronizing of the media group with which they are working. They are no more seen to be an independent voice. Yet, this form of writers will always be in demand.

Copy Writer/ Editor: Copy writers are those who require to develop an idea on certain fixed topic and develop certain script for a specific purpose. Similarly Copy editors are required to have excellent grammatical and sentence construction skills to make a horrible write-up into a readable piece of writing. These writers are greatly in demand for script writing in advertising and film industries. Apart from this they have a bigger role in the publication industry.

Technical writer: Technical writers are the discovery of recent industrial world where they bridge the gap to educate user through their writing about the technology and the product. They make the complex process into simple steps of the subject for the easy understanding of the user, where by they can use the product or perform certain tasks without human interference. Technical writers are hired in most of the industry today. Their roles are to prepare different technical document for the industry use.

Content Writer: Content writer’s job is the very recent demand in the writing opportunity, which is entirely because of Internet. People and company wants professional writing to be done for their web site, which describe about their products and services. Today, merely a web site is not enough to have an Internet presence. A web site nicely designed and presented with wonderful content can create unimaginable face value. Mind you, toady, to know about a company or the person, everyone logs on to the web pages and try to understand at the first hand information. Therefore, You may very well understand the importance of good content on the web site. Content writers can add great value to your image.

Medical Writer / Scientific Writer: Writers who have formal educational and training in Medicine or Science are mostly encouraged to take up this role because of their understanding of the domain knowledge. But due to ever soaring demand for writers even other stream background writers are tried who can learn the terms of the trade faster and use it judiciously.

Patent and Regulatory writer: These writers are basically legal expert who understand subject well. The accuracy of knowledge with articulate use of legal words is the main crux of the writing. Though, tough to train, this writing is very challenging and highly paid for.

Ghost Writer: Ghost writers are always in demand. They are the evergreen people who help millions being at the backdrop. Their role includes writing for different person adopting their style. Most of the Ghost writers help high profile people who has weak command on writing or lack of time.

Financial Writer: This again is the specific writing, which requires domain expertise and educational training. Most of the people who can understand financial subject well can make a good writer. Yet again, there is no yardstick for the writers who are quick in understanding a subject. They can be brilliant asset in any industry. Their writing ability and quick learning skills are big plus for industry as well as for the writer himself/ herself.

These are few forms of the writing, which largely employ or provide work for today’s writer. May be some more form would be in making in the future. However, what form of writing you choose to make career of your own is the question you should ask yourself and may be try writing where you suit well and what you like doing again and again. But, certainly if you like writing and write well, you have a place here.

Technical Writing and the Domain Knowledge

Technical writers are often been questioned during the interview if they have worked earlier in the same domain or not. Even I have faced the same tune during my interviews on the previous occasions but mostly by those employers who have never shown any interest in my writing ability or my understanding ability of the subjects. For a writer, is it going to make any difference? If at all, it is going to make difference, the question is how much. Is there any one to quantify it? Interviewers possibly know this question much before they come across the candidate. The kind of work they have done previously or the companies they have worked for is enough to know about the domain a candidate has worked so far. Yet, this question is eventually asked.

I have not yet understood the real purpose of this question, may be the interviewers who are very much experience in the technical writing field can throw some light on this. Whereas I understand that technical writers are meant to work in a different setup at different times and they are basically writers who are by default supposed to clear up the mess in the writing and make it simpler and understandable to the readers. What happens if they have Domain Knowledge? Will their work be faster and smoother? I agree to some extent that writers will enjoy the comfort of knowing the subject well, and it will not be demanding either to spend much time in understanding it. But even if you are in the same domain, next time the topic changes, issue changes and the requirement changes. To cope up with all these one will have to spend required amount of time. Above all, can the writer be as knowledgeable as the Subject matter experts. The straight answer can be “no”. Technical writers can learn only some basics of the domain. That can be gathered during due course of time while working on the project.

So, why is this fuss? Is this a limiting factor for any of the technical writers to land up in any technical writing job before having domain knowledge? My answer is, it should not be. If it is so, then I believe subject matter experts will have to be the technical writers. Yes, but technical writers will have to be a fast learner and should have interest in learning things to present it to the audience what they are aiming for. In this perspective, it is right to have knowledge of your domain, which can always help you in understanding. But this is not the core requirement of a technical writer. The more years of work you put in some domain, the more you learn about it. But it should not become a constraint while you make a shift from one domain to another domain.

At the end of the day it is the choice of the technical writers themselves to analyze liking for a domain and if possible stick to that because that will eventually provide them some other opportunity in terms of career growth. Say for example, I have written for Telecommunication domain, Agriculture and now writing for Life Science products. My background is in life science and it gives me upper edge in understanding the business logic of the product but the work what we perform, does not require that much of specialized knowledge. For me this domain could be a liking domain and I may prefer to be in this domain and write about it. Similarly an engineer graduate who is into technical writing might choose to write more about hard core technology, a finance graduate might think of writing in financial product and management graduate can write about ERP and other related domain. It is all about likes and dislikes, which drives you to choose the domain.

This is one of the issues going round in the industry for quite some time and there should be clarity on this. Well, the necessity will definitely bring people to understand it by themselves. I remember there was a time when only engineers were in demand to be in the technical writing. But now the clout is out, writers can be found in any individual and of any background. Therefore, now the technical writers are from different backgrounds. Similarly the dearth of good technical writers will definitely wipe away the hypocrisy of domain knowledge, which some times block your entry into many of the good corporation. Early understanding would be the welcome step towards solving this issue.

Pitfalls of Technical Writing

The documentation need does not always grant good status and valuable position for technical writers in any of the product development company. Most often when you interact with the technical writers, they do not seem to be very much willing to let you know where are they heading towards in their career or they are happy about their role in the organization. The truth is that they themselves do not know what is their fate except the fact that they have a job, which is paying them well presently.

Ask most technical writers about their workplaces and you will likely to hear the same complaints. The developers do not follow any specs and never tell what they are up to. They slip their schedules by months, but the minute they are done, you are supposed to have the docs ready, like by magic. The developers and development team is the hub of activity and the core team in any product company. Obviously, this is. However, it is not only the team in the organization. If so, does organization not need other teams like testing, documentation and SQA team to work simultaneously. So, why is there a bias?

Worst over, most of the developers are bad in their verbal and non-verbal communication. If you learn their English, you forget yours and that is the end of your year’s toil of learning little bit of English. Yet, they will only meet the customer with their lanky, unshaven English language. The scenario is, you keep on changing the job and everywhere you go, you will witness the same thing happening. Moreover, many a times you report to your boss who does not have slightest idea about what you do and what it takes to do such job.

I remember, in my last company, a Software Requirement Specification document was returned to our development team with the comment that it contained 90% language error and it can not be accepted in its present form. We had to do the cleaning and correcting of the entire document to make it presentable. Yet, Technical writers are often struggle to prove their Return On Investment in absence of any established metrics for measuring it. Irony is that technical writers can make difference in any kinds of the document organization produce, be it client serving documents or archival documents, yet their importance is highly misunderstood.

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 it's 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 the user's advocate, 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, any one 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.