Re: Recommended software for breaking into technical writing

[Mark Baker <mbaker -at- OMNIMARK -dot- COM>]

Hyun Kul \Sean\ Kim wrote

>I'm a newspaper reporter considering a career switch into technical
>writing.  What software and/or programming languages do you recommend I
>learn?  And if you can prioritize them from "must know" to "highly
>recommended," I would appreciate it.

A technical writer needs a knowledge of the subject area they are writing
about at least equivalent to the knowledge of an expert user. You do not
need the knowledge of a product designer or developer, but you will need to
know enough of their language to communicate effectively with them.

This is entirely dependant on the field you are writing about. When I
documented office telephone systems for Nortel I needed to know as much
about using the phones as a good receptionist, and as much about wiring up
the system as an installer. I also had to know some telephony concepts and
terminology that the receptionist, at least, would probably not know. But I
did not have to be a telephony engineer.

Now that I document OmniMark, I have to understand OmniMark as well as a
decent OmniMark programmer. I also have to get my head around some to the
computer science terminology the developers use, which a programmer might
not know, unless they came from a computer science background. But I do not
have to be a computer scientist.

The technical writer's knowledge in these areas will probably never be as
fluent as the expert user, because it will not be fed by constant repetition
of the tasks involved, but you have to understand what the user does.

For the writing part, no particular technical skills are required. You have
to be able to understand your audience and write for them, just as you do as
a journalist.

Unfortunately, thanks to the desktop publishing calamity that struck in the
80's many technical writers are expected to do their own graphic design,
page layout, and pre-press. These are activities which take considerable
time and skill, and the requirement to do them takes away from time spent on
research and writing and tends to lead to an emphasis on developing layout
and production skills at the expense of technical skills.

Oddly  enough, I came to technical communication from desktop publishing,
and the earliest technical writing I ever did was about desktop publishing
tools and techniques. Now I write about a programming language and I don't
do any desktop publishing at all. (Computers do most of it, a superb
professional desktop publisher does the rest.)

If it is writing you love, look for an enlightened organization that does
not impose pre-press chores on writers, and set about leaning what the
expert users of their products know. Journalists and technical writers are
much alike. (I have been both.) We are both professional dilettantes. Try to
avoid situations in which the requirement to acquire  mechanical publishing
skills will interfere with your dabbling in the skills of other professions.

BTW as part of understanding OmniMark programming, I have to know how to
program the machines to do the DTP. Which means that the person advising you
to avoid DTP comes from someone who knows it well and has built a career on
that knowledge. But the point is, for me, that it is one of those areas of
knowledge that I have developed expert user knowledge of, as a technical
communicator. I love knowing it. I love writing about it. I would hate to do
it every day.

Good luck

---
Mark Baker
Senior Technical Communicator
OmniMark Technologies Corporation
1400 Blair Place
Gloucester, Ontario
Canada, K1J 9B8
Phone: 613-745-4242
Fax: 613-745-5560
Email mbaker -at- omnimark -dot- com
Web: http://www.omnimark.com

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