January 7^th, 2005

A few days ago, my friend Ken asked me about technical writing. Although I don't do a lot of that any more, I still know enough to answer his questions, since I started technical writing professionally a decade ago, and for my own edification long before that:

He asked:

"Would you say it was the case that tech companies prefer people with the technical ability who they can teach to write?"

And I replied:

I would say that there are three scenarios:

The first is that of the Career Writer with less technical ability. He or she ends up being a technical writer until such time as he dies or moves to a commune and has 14 babies with 12 different partners. User Guides are usually written by these folks. In their spare time they write dramatic short stories about Wiccans named Cynthia.

Then there's the Techie Writer. He writes when he has to, but pines for and dreams of the day that he can be a programmer just like the big kids. He frequently crashes meetings, and his motto (spoken in a small voice) is, "me too!! me too!!" I know, you see, because I am of that group. Customization and Configuration Guides are what these folks are best suited to. In their spare time they do some more revision on an SF novel they've been writing for 6 years.

Then there are the Pseudo Writers. They end up making things worse than better because they don't understand writing, the subject, or the concept of organizing information. These jerks are convinced that the more you write and the more you lecture someone, the more that other person will learn. They are under the impression that weighting every single point equally is a good idea.

Example:

1. Enter your name and address.
2. Install and configure your DBMS, then build your database, including all 16 tables, 857 fields, and 14 stored procedures.
3. Click OK.

These people should not be allowed near keyboards and pens ... and they should be forced to hire a professional tech writer, even if only to write notes to their children's teachers.¹ In their spare time they read the backs of tequila bottles.

* * *

In the long run, I would say that companies seldom know what they want when it comes to a technical writer. Every employer seems to have a different idea of what a technical writer does. So interviews are almost always exercises in intuition and trying to impress them. If a development lead is doing the interviewing, bring out as much of your technical skills as you can. If another technical writer is hiring, then make sure your resumé is perfect and all styles are properly used (a resumé where every single paragraph is in the "Normal" style is not a good sign). If you are being hired by an HR department, then your education and on-the-job experience is the most important, because HR people generally have no clue at all what a technical writer really does.

Avoid at all costs: Engineers. They think of technical writers as glorified secretaries, and cannot fathom (in their stupid/clever way that only engineers can be) why tech writers should be allowed to make more than $8.00 / hour. After all, they just copy and paste engineers' "helpful" and "informative" listing of features and functions into MS Word documents and run spell check, don't they?

* * *

¹ Different types of technical writers and notes to their children's teachers:

Career Writer	Please excuse my son from PhysEd today. He's too sick with some sort of disgusting skin problem. Errata: Page 1, Sentence 1, after "son": Please insert the word, "Bobby" ... Page 1, Sentence 2, for "some sort ... problem" substitute "impetigo".
Techie Writer	Attention: Teacher of: Bobby Porter, age 8 Bobby has impetigo (an acute contagious staphylococcal or streptococcal skin disease characterized by vesicles, pustules, and yellowish crusts), which you can confirm by rolling up one or both of Bobby's sleeves and observing his arms visually. This affliction (impetigo), prevents Bobby from participating effectively in Physical Education classes; thus, please do not force him to do so today. For more information, contact me (father, Brian Porter) at: 212-555-1212.
Pseudo Writer	As at today, January 7th, 2005: Please be advised that this message is intended for consideration by the teacher of my son and nobody else. Further, be advised that PE attendance by my son has been considered and deemed by me as non-sanctionable. This is also to inform you that any consideration given as to the status of PE attendance should fall into the category of Code Purple (see attached Appendix A), otherwise any other consideration will be considered perfidious and treated accordingly. [excerpt from Appendix A:] Explanation of Codes: Codes based on hues with AU below 5000 Angstroms are to be considered increasingly negative, with the lower numbers indicating increasingly negative indications.
Engineer	This note will explain the status of Bobby Porter's availability for PEC (Physical Education Class). To aid the reader, words and punctuation have been compiled into two separate lists and arranged alphabetically: Words: and, Bobby, Brian, class, does, energy, excuse, father, from, have, He, Impetigo, is, not, participate, PhysEd, Please, Porter, sick, Thank, the, to, today, with, you Punctuation: ,,,...

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