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Jill <jill -dot- kenny -at- corp -dot- bellsouth -dot- net> writes that she has been asked
to write and assist in writing "technical design docs, architectural
overviews, application roadmaps, and development methodology
descriptions." She is not sure whether they count as "technical writing"
as she has focussed on end-user documents, so far.
That certainly sounds like technical writing to me - with the
emphasis on "technical". Whether you want to be involved in
writing those documents can be another story.
When these are internal documents for a company, they are often
written by developers. I have found that when these documents are
written by developers who can write well that they are quite useful
for the end-user documentation. You might find writing them useful
for getting to work earlier on end-user documents than usually
possible. You might also find that working on these documents
helps provide you with a better conceptual overview of the product
than you would get from playing with the screens. On the other
hand, you might find that writing them takes too much time away
from your regular work.
In addition to benefiting your ability to produce end-user
documentation, working on developer documents may also help
you to move into documenting APIs and other programming tools -
or to evaluate if you might be interested in that work.
Good luck. It could be a wonderful opportunity.
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Michele Marques
Lead Technical Communicator, CMS Manufacturing Systems
mmarques -at- cms400 -dot- com
905-477-4499 x280
