---
title: "Writing skills versus technical skills, or, What I realized in solving a Sudoku puzzle"
date: 2014-03-19
description: "$( document ).ready(function() { // Handler for .ready() called. $("
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2014/03/19/writing-skills-versus-technical-skills-or-what-i-realized-in-solving-a-sudoku-puzzle/
---
# Writing skills versus technical skills, or, What I realized in solving a Sudoku puzzle
> I am a double major in English and IST at The Pennsylvania State university and I am trying to figure out how much technology I will get to learn as a tech writer. I read somewhere else that tech writing is 90% learning technology, 10% writing. What are your thoughts about how deeply you have to understand technology?

Let me respond by relating a recent experience. The other day, my third-grader brought home a 6x6 Sudoku image puzzle as homework and had trouble solving it. I had never tried my hand at Sudoku, and didn't really care much for puzzles like that. I told my third-grader that her mother would probably be better at this, but my daughter explained that Mom already tried. Mom (Shannon) noted from another room that her "brain doesn't work like Sudoku." This intrigued me, so I sat down and tried to figure out the Sudoku puzzle.

Sudoku is a puzzle where you have various sections, called nonets (or sextets for a 6x6 puzzle), that must contain all numbers 1 through 9 (or 1 through 6 for the 6x6). Each row and each column must also have an identical variety and count of numbers -- but the numbers can be in any order.

The puzzle begins with a few numbers already embedded in the squares, which you can't change. This mini 6x6 sudoku homework assignment used images rather than numbers, but we simply converted the images into numbers to make it easier.

I sat down and tried to figure it out. Shannon suggested that we cut out little tiles that we could easily shift around in the puzzle. After cutting out the tiles, we got about three quarters of the way through before realizing we were stuck. So we slid the tiles off to reset the slate and tried again, only to reach the same end.

I googled briefly for strategy info but didn't find anything. Later I tried creating an image of the Sudoku puzzle and have Google Goggles solve it (as Google Goggles [supposedly can do](http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/11/google-goggles-uses-your-phone-to-solve-sudoku-and-more-video/)), but I didn't have an Android device, and the iPhone Google app image search didn't work. I later found an online Sudoku puzzle solver, which easily solved it.

However, I felt empty about the computer-won victory. I thought the solution would reveal the method, but I was still just as clueless about how to solve it as before. By now my daughter had grown tired and gone to bed.