Um ...help?

[boizane]

So... Pretend I'm a Tech Writer (and that I know what I'm doing)

What do I need to know about search engines? Imagine I'm trying to use optimization techniques for search engines within an article.

Oh, yeah, and imagine that I've never used a computer before...

Twelve days and two Sci Fi novels later and I'm almost back to myself.  And now I have

Comments

[adularia]

I think (but not sure...) you can break into tech writing by writing documentation for a project that someone else is working on. If you know any open-source geeks who're actually working on something, you can ask them if they want help documenting and they'll probably give you more than you bargained for. :)

I took a tech writing course, and one of the assignments I really enjoyed was to write instructions for a non-trivial task. Pick something like changing a tire on a bike, pick an intended audience, and try to make it intelligible and convey the right amount of information.

Don't worry about C++... if you want to learn any application language for the purpose of writing about it, try Ruby or Python. IMO, learning C to start with is a good way to learn basic procedural programming that a lot of other languages are based on. Learning C++ without a dev goal is just going to drive you crazy.

I hope that helps - my brain is full of pseudo-tech advice, but I'm not sure how good it is.

[anonymous]

I've worked with several tech writers over the years and have gotten on well with them. I have been a software tester of various flavors for over 15 years. I've found that a good tech writer is the translator for the naive, yet intelligent user of a product. This translator takes the tech and, without losing any accuracy or too much information, tries to explain what's going on and how to use that tech

[lady_equine]

This was from me, by the way. My network is being...special tonight and I did not know I'd been logged out.

[ursuscelticus]

I wouldn't bother with C++ or even C. If you want to learn programming, I'd say go with C#, but! I'm a technical writer, and I didn't know any programming other than a smattering of Javascript. Course, I had been doing sys admin stuff in my previous job, but my computer skills were and are completely self taught. I was a Women's Studies major, fer cryin' out loud! And you know where I work now, right? You only really need to know programming if you want to be a programmer/writer, that is, document APIs and stuff specifically for a programmer audience. Otherwise, you just need good, clear writing skills to document end user stuff, or to write training manuals, etc. Shoot me an e-mail if you want to chat about this offline.

[flasher702]

You don't need to know too much tech stuff to be a tech writer. Knowing less can actually be helpful at times as you will assume less when you are writing. More of a general overview and knowledge of the user environment with a lot of attention to detail.

[flasher702]

oh, and you could take a job doing telephone tech support for some common product like internet access or cell phones. They'll hire anyone and you'll get to try and explain things to all different kinds of people. Way cheaper than school and if you suck at it you can just leave and not tell anyone you did it ;)