As college students contemplate careers in technical writing, they often hesitate because of negative stereotypes about the profession. As with many stereotypes, these aspects of technical writing can describe some situations for some people, but as a whole they aren’t necessarily true. I’ve listed Ten Technical Writing Stereotypes — tell me if the stereotypes hold generally true for you or not. You can take the … more »

Tonight I participated on a career panel for technical writing majors at Utah State University. In preparation, I tried to think of answers to questions they might ask. The one question that I was sure some student would ask is this: If you were to do it over again, would you choose technical writing as your career? I started reading through some back posts on … more »

Technical writing careers are often a mystery to those on the outside. What do technical writing jobs involve? What is the industry like? What is the career path of a technical writer, and what challenges do technical writers face? Carmen, a student in a technical management program, found me by searching for “technical writers” on Yahoo.com. Fulfilling an assignment in a Career Development course to … more »