Requirements of Technical writers

REQUIRED QUALIFICATION: An aspirant must have good command over language and must have basic computer skills and awareness about technology.
Technical Writer must have deep domain knowledge.
There are two types of aspirants who want to become technical writers.
1. Those coming from fields such as journalism, creative writing, and masters in English
2. Those coming from technical back ground
Those, who enjoy good command over language, may lack soft skills and minimum awareness about technical things. They try to write in a flowery language rather than an easily comprehensive language and most often, they lack basic awareness about technical things.
Those, who enjoy sound technical knowledge, may lack good command over language, grammar and style of writing. Hence, aspirants must have both command over language as well as technical soundness. Domain knowledge is another mandatory requirement for the aspirants.
REQUIRED SOFTWARE SKILLS: An aspirant who aspires to become a technical writer must have extensive skills in Frame maker, ROBO Help, Acrobat and Word. It is preferable to have experience in creating web pages using HTML, XML and Dream weaver.
REQUIRED ATTITUDE: A technical writer must possess following personal qualities.
• He must enjoy a good command over English
• He must be a good communicator
• He must always keep himself updated with state-of-art technology
• If a technical writer has to prepare a document on unknown topic, he has to educate himself by reading various books on the topic. He has to meet several Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
• He must be a good listener because he is required to meet several Subject Matter Experts
• He must be good at information gathering and information organization.

Written by: S. Chandrashekara Reddy
chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com

Inverse Style of Writing

When you are supposed to write either a news item or an article, it is advisable to start it with the conclusion rather than the process the issue underwent. After revealing the conclusion, you explain the entire process systematically.

For example, let us assume that George W. Bush, the former President of USA, is busy with the talks to take a decision whether to declare a war on Iraq. After several rounds of talks, the president may decide to declare a war on Iraq. Then, the news item must begin with the conclusion rather than with the prior discussions, as follows: “USA decided to declare a war on Iraq, despite strong opposition from several countries in UNO”.

When an incident takes place, readers bother more about the final decision/conclusion rather than the background/discussion/process the issue underwent. Though the discussion/the process too is an important one, it becomes just secondary due to more importance given to the conclusion. While going through an article, essay or a news item, readers can stop reading at any point and hence, it is advisable to mention the most important or sought after thing at the beginning.

Several professors of Journalism and Mass Communications call the style as “inverse approach” or “Inverted pyramid style”. We can find such kind of writing often in articles, but it is more common in news items.

Written by: S. Chandrashekara Reddy

chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com

Gudielines(Golden Rules) for Technical writes

• Technical writer has to bear the target audience in mind.
• The style of writing must be clear and concise. Our writing must explain about complex concepts, processes and procedures in a simple and comprehensive way.
• Be out of technical jargon.
• Just provide only those details which are required by the user.
• Pictures can speak more than words. Use one illustration instead of a lengthy paragraph wherever it is possible.
• Heading must be brief, attractive and must explain about the subject.
• Use sub-headings when you are supposed to prepare a lengthy document. They make (sub-headings) make the article readable.
• Paragraphs must be neither too big nor too small.
• Use hyper-links so that a uchandrashekarareddys@gmail.comser can directly get the details of the required topic without searching much. If it is not an electronic document, it is better to add an index of important concepts.
• The document must not be dull and dumb.
• The document must be clear and accurate.
• A technical writer has to meet Subject Matter Experts while preparing the user guide or technical document.
• Do not try to exhibit your subject knowledge entirely when you are supposed to prepare a document on a subject.
(Note: Do not follow blindly any rules including the rules that are mentioned above. Act according to the situation. Situation is the ruler of rules and the regulator of regulations).

Written by:
S. Chandrashekara Reddy
chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com

Miscellaneous issues related to Technical writing

Technical writing and by-line publication: A creative writer can become popular with his writings as his writings get published by-line. However, a technical writer cannot become popular even after working for decades together because he does not published by-line. In technical writing by-line publication is neither required nor encouraged. Hence, we rarely find any document with the name of its author. However, those who write articles and books on technical and scientific issues are exceptions.
Written By: S. Chandrashekara Reddy
Contact:
Ph.No: 9849856722
Chandrashekara_reddy@yahoo.co.in

Basic things that must be known to Technical writers

To become a good writer, a technical writer must know the following basic things.
Usage of words: writer must always use simple words, which are known to the majority among his audience. Do not try to show your vocabulary and try to be away from flowery language. Try to avoid unpopular and rare words.
Sentences: Sentences should be short and simple. The audience may feel it difficult to understand long sentences. Writer must remember the proverb “small is beauty”. There should not be any scope for confusion in a sentence.
Grammar: Writers must avoid to the maximum possible extent the usage of passive voice. He must try to avoid to the maximum possible extent to avoid indirect sentences.
Style: Use personal style rather than impersonal style to make your communication more appealing to your audience.

Advantages of team work

(Synopsis: Definition of team work – Terms similar to team work – Features of Team work - Advantages of team work)
A team is a group of people who work together for achieving a common goal. Often, we use two terms “group” and “team” as synonyms. But, there exists a difference between the terms such as team, group and crowd. If you go to a market, you may find a crowd of people on the road. Those people form a crowd but neither a group nor a team as they visit market with different purposes. They may be found together but, they do not either work together or have a common goal. Now, let us discuss about ‘group’. If go to a park during evening hours, you can find a group of evening walkers. They form a group but not a team as they do not work together though they visit the park with same intention.
Co-operation and co-ordination are prime features of a team and in fact, they are the life and blood of a team. Team may be a software team, network team, sports team, army or political cabinet. In a team, there never exists the concept “I” but, “We”. In present day global village, teamwork is not merely important but, essential and compulsory. Teamwork has become such an important concept that several MNC’s started conducting tests to determine teamwork abilities of the candidates.
Present day organizations can not work and in fact, can not exist without teamwork though there are good many one man show organizations with limited scope of operations. Hence, a large number of schools are introducing several programs that assign the students several team assignments.
In order to make a team successful one, there must be a team leader with a vast experience and expertise. A few decades ago, there used to be positions such as supervisor and manager, which are by now renamed as team leader or team manager. To be successful in a team, one must be extravert and communicative. Introverts with poor communicative skills can not easily withstand in present day highly dynamic world that keeps on changing itself every nanosecond.
Advantages of team work: Following are some of the advantages of team work.
More Output: A team can produce more output than the aggregate output of the all the members. It is not mere wisdom but, proved scientifically with the data collected by several statisticians and industrial experts. To understand the concept, let us take a small and simple example. Take ‘A’ and multiply it with the same value and you will get ‘A2’. Let us take ‘B’ and multiply it with the same value and you will get ‘B2’. Now, you add both the results and you will get ‘A2+ B2’. Now, as a part of second illustration, let us add A and B at the beginning itself and you will get A+B. Now, you multiply the value with the same value and you will get A2+B2+2AB. Here, you are getting 2AB as an additional value, which is the result of team work.

Scope for learning from others: When we are part of a team, we can learn from rest of the members of the team. Team members all can share their experiences, knowledge, and views. They can also know the success as well as failure stories of other members. Here, we must remember a proverb that fools learn from their own mistakes while intelligent people learn from the mistakes of others. If you are a part of a team, you can learn not only from your mistakes but also from the mistakes of your team members.
New and better thoughts: Two heads are better than one head. If team members all come up with different thoughts, the team manager can select a better thought. Otherwise, they may get a new thought after listening to all the thoughts. Or else, they can take some of the features of one thought and some more features of another thought and can finally come up with a final thought, which can be termed a mixed or hybrid thought that may be better than all the earlier thoughts.
Let us take an example, plan designed by John may act like a horse that can run the organization like a horse but, can not carry the entire burden of the organization. Plan designed by Robert may act like a donkey that can carry the entire weight of the organization but, can not run the organization like a horse. After listening to two thoughts, the team leader may design a plan by taking the positive aspects and eliminating the negative aspects of both the plans. The mixed or hybrid plan may serve the purpose as a mule which can run the organization as fast as horse and can carry the entire burden of organization like a donkey.

Written by: S. Chandrashekara Reddy.
chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com