Recently, I was interviewed by Felcia Gopaul for a podcast on technical writing as part of a series by College Funding Source on careers. Felicia has a goal of interviewing 100 professionals in 100 different careers. This interview, as you can guess, is about being a technical writer. You can check it out here. You can also download the MP3 file from this link. Felicia lists the major details of the podcast as follows: Tom's story in be...
Technical communication professors often ask students to interview a professional technical writer to get a better sense of the field. The following responses are from Cheryl Landes, a professional technical and marketing communicator. Cheryl owns her own company, Tabby Cat Communications. The questions come from a student at Missouri State University. What preparation did you have for your current job? I think the best way to answer this...
I've always been curious about the military. I've wanted to join it several times, but the circumstances were never right. No Easy Day is an autobiography of an ex-Navy SEAL who participated as a team lead on the mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. The book generated a fair amount of controversy, because Navy SEAL missions are usually confidential, but the writer, Mark Owens, clearly explains that he has included nothing in the...
One outcome of any good conference is to make you think critically about your professional role and identity. I just returned from three days in Portland at Lavacon. It was the first time I've attended Lavacon, even though I have been helping out with the website for several years. I'm from Tacoma, just 120 miles north of Portland, but I hadn't been to Portland much at all. At least, not that I remember. It turns out downtown Portland is ...
During the fall and winter semesters, tech comm professors often ask students to interview professional technical writers to get a better sense of the field. Having answered a few student inquiries already, I decided to invite other professionals to respond to student questions, and then to copy me so that I could post their responses as a guest Q&A post on my site. The following are responses to student questions from Steve Goldberg,...
In another insightful post from Mark Baker, this one called The Tech Comm Paradox, Mark asks why there's no market pressure for good documentation even though bad documentation is a constant source of user complaints. Mark writes, This then is the tech comm paradox: documentation is a common source of consumer unhappiness and complaints, and yet there is no market pressure on products with bad docs, and therefore doc quality does not impr...
Today I received the following question about creating video tutorials: I've been asked to create a set of video tutorials for work. However, it has been difficult since I keep having to start over and re-record things whenever I make a mistake. In my search to improve the process, I came across your article "How I create Video Tutorials." I understand that it has been a while since you wrote the post, but I was hoping you could give me s...
I had a humbling experience last week in which I tried to make one small change in a program but had no success. The program had nothing to do with tech comm, but it got me thinking about how to change the world, because I run into the same challenges pretty much everywhere. Whether it's work, school, church, a non-profit organization, the government, or some other group, most likely there has been something that has stirred you to action...
As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm making my way through Peter Elbow's Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing. Elbow's wants to infuse techniques from speech into writing to improve the quality of writing. I want to infuse elements of speech into video scripts so they sound more like natural speech. The book is a near perfect fit for this. In Part 1, chapter 4, Elbow identifies about nine qualities of speech that, if ...
One of the first tasks in creating video tutorials involves writing a script. In informal situations, you can simply use an outline or wing it, but corporate settings require higher professional standards. I absolutely hate it when project managers get too involved in the video scripts. I've been on projects where the project manager decides to pull in several other team members and all write the script together alongside the technical wr...
This is the same sentence said in different ways. One question I've often wondered is how technical writers can feel so comfortable stringing together words on paper but be completely inadequate when it comes to vocalizing the same text in a script, such as reading for a video tutorial. We talk often about voice and tone, and consider ourselves, as writers, experts in understanding how to communicate. We can adopt different styles in ou...
I'm currently listening to one of the best books I've come across in a long time: The Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. This book is so popular it enjoys a four and a half star rating on Audible from more than 4,600 reviewers and costs 2 credits rather than 1 (even though it's only 17 hours). The book, in the genre of science, covers the history of the world to the present, beginning with the origins of the universe, the...
Quick reference guides 1.0 Quick Reference Guides: The Poetry of Technical Writing 1.1 Quick Reference Guide Formats -- Tips for Finding Attractive Layouts 1.2 STC Presentation this Thursday: "Quick Reference Guides: Short and Sweet Technical Documentation" ...
Recently a fellow tech writer tweeted the following: Just taught my first #Zumba class! If I were @tomjohnson, I'd find a creative way to tie this to #techcomm. Any good ideas? — Michelle Sander (@techwriterme) August 31, 2012 I realize that I sometimes come across as zealous about technical writing. This is how I've branded my online persona. And sure enough, although I don't participate in Zumba, after reading the tweet I couldn't help ...
After a week of not riding my bike to work, I resumed the regular riding routine. It felt so good to ride to work again. I'm convinced that the only way to ride a bike regularly and for enough time is to fit the ride into a commute to work. I don't commute all the way home, though I bet I could if I wanted. I drive to a nearby grocery story and park there. It cuts out 3.5 miles from the ride, which means I can make it in under 50 minutes rathe...
