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.

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!

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.

Testing Time

Job Market is terribly down but most often, on an average, I receive around 5 mails seeking Technical writers in various Software organizations. Some of the organizations have sent mails umpteen times for the same position. I wonder these organizations are really hiring writers in this down time. But looking at the advertisements and consultant’s mail it looks that there is demand for Technical Writers in the market. At the same time I look at two of my friends who are searching for a position as a technical writer for past two months but so far they have no offers in hand. Weighing both the sides I am bit confused and not able to conclude as what is happening in the market and is there really a demand for the technical writers.

However, this reminds me of the situation when there is no hope organization conducts interview to keep job seekers hope alive. To a certain extent it seems alright but if there is absolutely no hiring then this fake exercise becomes counter productive. But who knows what Ramlinga Raju did in Satyam, some other CEO might be doing in other organizations. Interview the Job seekers and keep them in the fake payroll and siphon the money on the part of their salaries. Otherwise, two of my friends running pillar to post for past two months and attending more than ten interviews would have had at least one offer in hand. They both have more than 3 years of experience in Technical Writing. If I recall, till October 2008, if you get 3 calls you could be having 2 offers in hand. Message seems to be loud and clear, but to believe in this, is to leave the hope of future. It is not only my friends alone, it could be even me …….. I am scared, disappointed, and worried.

But looking at the questions what one of my friends in one of the interview was asked, it looks as if it is pass time for the recruitment department of the organization. To keep the recruiters busy, job seekers are grilled without any outcome. The real requirement is difficult to analyze. At this point of time when the interviewer’s future is itself in dark, they shoot question such as ‘What is the future of Technical Writing in India?’ Another one asked, ‘Are American writers better or Indian?”

My friend, who faced the interview, did not know how to answer these questions. Nevertheless, till now a facade is created in India especially in software industry that technical writing has very good career and suddenly technical writers are to face this reality. When you do not have job in hand, can you say that this industry promises lots of opportunity for you. Secondly, American and Indians alike are on the firing line and every one may be in the hit list to be fired. Finding out, who is better, that too from a perspective job seeker is utter foolishness. One of the friend rightly once said, ‘Recruiters are now looking for Pankaj Mishra, Arvind Adiga and Arundhati Roy to be technical writers. May be they might ask even Salman Rushdie to do this job.’

I can understand, it was seer frustration but the way he has been treated makes him say so. The postmortem of these interviews presses you hard to do the soul searching, whether you have a place here or not. Well, to say a little about the recruiters, they are nuts and they can pose any sort of questions to you without they themselves even knowing the answer. At a time they feel they are great and they can screw any person during the interview. But tide will turn, if you don not realize the value of good assets now, in the good time they will not recognize you. I mean your organization. These are passing phases and good turn in economy is expected. The crux is how well you can help job seeker contain their aspiration and motivate them to keep their hope alive. Of course technical writing will remain existent even though some of the technical writers find it tough or struggle to get a job. India is emerging as a promising destination for software industry and it will continue to evolve even in documentation. These are just testing time.

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.

Technical Writers: Can you justify your job?

Technical writers are in the profession of disseminating the technical knowledge in structured format for the consumption of the user, which is aimed to realize a specific task or use. The present situation is, where the industry is filled with the technical writers who come from different backgrounds. Most of the technical writers are engineers, some of them have taken the technical writing course and some of them have made transition into this field from direct mass communication and journalism. The document produced by these technical writers has mixed quality as good, bad and ugly. However, most often the complaint received from the customer is that the documents are not user friendly.

If analyzed, most of the time the language is not very appropriate, clear and grammatically correct to explain the features and functionality. Some times the information presented does not have flow; sometimes many of the information are missing from the document. In nutshell we have not grown to a level to claim ourselves expert in the field of technical writing. One can say that this field is still in the nascent stage in India. Largely true, because our curriculum does not include this subject and we do not intend to take it as a career. Most of the people today who opt for writing career become journalists and join media related jobs.

The apathy is that most of the people who are today’s technical writers are not from the writing background, nor do they have inclination towards writing. It’s sheer job opportunity, which has drawn them to accept the job. Many of them working after a brief period have made a decision to shift to other fields and remaining are carrying on the task to continue their job. It’s quite ridiculing that the job what you do everyday is the job you do not like to do but you are bound to do because you are paid for that. Or, the job what you do is not your cup of tea. All these factors add to the immature technical writing produced by some of the unskilled technical writers, which brings bad name to the community.

The job what you hold today, is not just the job what you can hold because of the fact that you can write little bit of English. If you do not love your job then in fact it will not take you anywhere. You first be writer before you become a technical writer. As a matter of fact, you have to be first a writer to be a medical writer, political writer, and technical writer or fiction writer. If the writer is missing in you then nothing else can help you to become technical writer. Therefore, not only writing, but good quality writing is desired to be in this profession.

Can transition add value?

For many of the aspiring creative writer working as a technical writer might seem a good option because it is going to be paid well. If you are transitioning from your current non-writing position to technical writing because it's a hot market, you like technology, and/or you want to do away with your freelance tag, perhaps you are thinking right. But in case you just like writing, then you should think before you step in.

Writing and editing user manuals, help documents, technical bulletin and API document could be painful if you don’t love doing so. Technical writing is demanding and you will be tried writing different sort of technical stuff, which might not satisfy your liking for writing what you are looking for. So, before deciding to choose a career into technical writing, you must evaluate yourself.

Some would prefer to go for highly satisfying writing career of their liking even if it pays them less. Some would love to write about technology and enjoy doing so. Some would find technical writing as boring and unimaginative. Some would find technical writing as very interesting and creative, as it relates to problem solving and that requires lot of creativity. Follow your instinct to know where you fall among these categories.

What the technical writers meet and seminars stress upon?

Added to that the seminar and meet organized for the technical writers stresses upon learning different kinds of authoring and word processing tools, which is any way technical writers have to know to perform the task. I don’t know if any of the meet stresses to shape good language in spite of knowing that most of the technical writers come from non-writing background and that is going to be the bottleneck problem as they grow in their career. It is assumed that technical writers are basically the writers who has all the language ingredient in them to produced good writing and it’s the technical knowledge what they lack. Fundamentally, the assumption is right in the sense that you know what is expected out of you in terms of job and aim of the meet is to update you with new knowledge of the industry. Otherwise also, it’s the personal responsibility of the person to shape up their language skill who opts for this career.

Promise of global business

The reflection of good writing can be a visual part in any form, be it script, an article, an essay, an advertisement or a user manual. Especially user manual is supposed to be a first date with the product. Great manuals can sell products. There are good tutorials, which can make you understand the product so well that time and again you would love to continue with the same products.

But still there will be people who would still persist in search of your inner beauty. However, this is not the way to bet. Microsoft has consistently been trying to address everyone’s questions to make it competitive and have advantages. Still they may have messages. Above all to write the good manual you need to have good writers. And if you don’t have good writers your documents will not serve the purpose to the user. Bad documentation increases the cost of technical support and earns you even bad reputation in the industry.

Can we rise to the occasion and face the reality?

The best technical communicator is a technical person, is a subjective issue to argue. However, technical writers are the writers who have the rare ability to communicate and teach through indirect means such as paper and online media.

But it is very difficult to merely narrate a profession, which is entirely dependant on the personal caliber of a person. It is really a tough question to ask who can make a good technical writer. Many good writers who are able to write good story, poetry and fiction have many a times proved to be good technical writers as well and at a time bad writer too. Its all dependant on the personal interest what you could make of yourself

Possible solution?

Probably possible solution to stabilize this field in today’s context would be to hire really good writers so that they can justify their presence in the job. For the technical writers also, it would be apt to get out of the tag of half-writer, pseudo writer or be in dual job capacity being a writer and someone else too. If this field is to sustain well in India, the quality of writing has to be improved immensely to meet the challenge.

Technical Writing: Is the opportunity worth taking?

Technical writing is the art and science of producing document, which describes the technical information about the features of the product and its functionality. It is an art, because it involves the articulate use of language for communicating the information. It is a science because the presentation of the information is based on the styles, template, grammar, consistent terminology, clarity, concision, factual accuracy, information mapping, layout and design, proofreading, subject matter-expert reviews, document validation, resource scheduling, and deadline relative to product-release dates. Technical writing is not the recent development of the industry; it was present in the form of documentation in different form.

However, in recent years the importance of information communication have been felt paramount and documenting the technical information has not only become the part of communication but also the storage of knowledge for future reference and use. Technical writing and technical writers were the part of the information industry in the west from long time whereas in India its presence can be traced around two decades back. This is due to the emergence of software and hardware industry. But the real requirement of technical writing and technical writers are felt necessary for past five years, when India became a hot IT destination because of cost cutting factor and available talent pool. Almost all the product company required technical writers to document the product information in a legible manner, which can educate the user to use the product effectively. The emergence of India as global IT destination opened up a new job avenue for the people as technical writers.

Scenario

Although it does not matter which industry you're considering for a career, it probably employs technical writers. Technical writers work in computer science, medicine, environmental studies, electronics, government, cinema, the aerospace industry, and just about any field in which people must interpret and use technology. They are an indispensable part of today's technology world. Presently more than seventy percent of the technical writers are working for the Information technology Industry. Out of them, majority belongs to the western countries. India has very little share in terms of percentage of total technical writers in the IT industry.

According to some sources quoted frequently in the news, around 5000 Indian technical writers are engaged in technical writing, mostly with software industry. This includes the writers working for product information communication, pre-sales documentation and training documentation. Though this figure, according to some industry expert seems to be bit higher side. However, the demand for the technical writers is noticed ever increasing in India, but there is a dearth of people with right skills.

Indian IT industry is really finding it tough to get the technical writers from the market. Industry also can not overlook this part because this is the mandate of the industry to deliver or release the product to the customer along with the technical information in documented form. Without the product documentation the product delivery is incomplete.

What is the proposition?

The present situation where American way of looking at technical writers is being followed: every software company is looking for engineers to be the technical writers. The job is first offered to the engineers who want to make a career in technical writing and if the engineers are not available, only then the focus is turned on to other suitable incumbent. However, in software industry, most often the question is being asked, “Can engineers write well?”. Yet, they are preferred over others. The idea might be that engineers can understand technology better than the other lots. Then, what if they are not able to communicate well? In fact this might not be a generic problem. The question is now haunted for the hiring department, whom to rely on: a good writer without engineering background or an engineer without good writing skill. Software industry also truly believes in re-engineering the product and even resources. However, the belief of re-engineering an engineer into a good writer is a difficult task at hand and in some cases a utopian dream.

“Technology can be taught and learnt in a year or two, but learning a good language is the fruit of years learning process and that can not be given in a packet form” --quotes an industry expert. This holds true to the case that most of our institution emphasize on imparting technological education whereas they ignore the fact that without good communication the impact of technology can not be realized. This is indeed going to cause talent deficiency and industry might get the brunt of this sooner or later. There are some good trends coming up where some software company is weighing options to utilize services of good writers who have adaptation of learning new technology faster and translate them effectively into precise writing.

What is the job?

The job is where you do the same thing over and again. If this is your palate, technical writing may be the field for you. If you like the challenge of writing for an audience, technical writing offers you the chance to make money while just doing that. Technical writers work in a challenging, and exciting field which tests their ability to adapt to new situations and learn new skills. People who enjoy learning new things will find technical communication a stimulating career. Technical writers take knowledge from engineers, scientists, doctors and other experts and render it into forms that lay people can understand. To do this, they must have the willingness to continually learn about new subject matter. And they must know how best to present information to different audiences from technically trained people to the general public

The take on

Do you want to be a technical writer and write for the different audiences? Hold on! There is no sort cuts. The job will ask you to have few skills in you and some of them you can learn at work place as a part of the training. First and foremost is good writing skills in English and presentation skills of the information in the best-possible way. Primary knowledge of word processing tool like MS Word is required without saying. However, the company with whom you want to begin your career also teaches you the use of some of the other authoring, publishing and web help tools.

There are some of the training institutes, which provide short-term training on technical writing and placement too. There is no academic program being offered as of now in our educational system where you can be a qualified technical writer. The only opportunity you can have is to become a trained technical writer, that too with training or on job. This is a new opportunity in India and having career in this field is industry dependent and the future of this career can be well aligned with future of the industry.