Tag Archives: Technical Document Reviews

Technical Writing

My Technical Writing Process

August 23, 2012 – 8:32 pm
 
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Courseware Development Productivity Project Communications Technical Writing

Updating and Revising Technical Documents: A Primer

November 27, 2011 – 1:42 pm

While maintaining technical documents can be the most boring part of the technical writer’s job in some organizations, it’s a necessary part of the business especially in the federal government and other policies and procedure driven environments.

However, updating documents often falls down the list of priorities and becomes a reactionary task versus a natural element of business operations. This leads to such a simple task being flubbed and lapping up more resources and operational budget than first thought.

I am seeing more smaller contracts now for writers to come in an update technical documents especially policies and procedures guides and got to thinking how I like to update documents:

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Technical Writing Uncategorized Work

Lessons Learned From My Former Life As A Computer Book Technical Reviewer

October 8, 2011 – 3:50 pm

I was a computer book technical reviewer earlier in my career. It was a freelance gig, but I still consider the work one of the more formative chapters in my professional writing career even though it wasn’t actually writing work.

Computer book technical reviewers sometimes called technical editors are responsible for ensuring the technical accuracy of computer book manuscripts. The work taught me to pay attention to technical details, which in turn went onto influence my work as a technical writer and freelance writer.

The lessons I learned include:

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Technical Writing

Some Advice On Hiring Technical Writers

September 28, 2011 – 8:01 pm

I’ve written about hiring technical writers two or three times in the past with some interesting results. In fact, my initial article garnered me some not very nice emails from technical writers. It’s a timeless topic in my opinion so I wanted to go back and see if any of my initial advice and thoughts have changed in light of today’s economy.

There are still a lot of contrasting viewpoints on the role and skills of the technical writer that can even be confusing to technical writers themselves. This unnecessary confusion also leads to fallout that affects the salary and career mobility of technical writers. But as a hiring manager, it gives you more room to craft a technical writer position that can be of maximum benefit to your organization.

Here are my tips for hiring a technical writer:

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Downfall of Tech Docs Productivity Technical Writing

6 Ways To Sabotage Your Technical Documentation

August 21, 2011 – 5:41 pm

Every job hunt and even unsolicited discussions with recruiters bring me more tales of organizations continuing to have issues producing and maintaining technical documentation. It is not isolated in one sector and I keep hearing the same problems repeatedly. This has been a real disappointment for me over the years I was a contract technical writer and now that I have a staff technical writer job.

Developing technical documentation isn’t fun. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be such an afterthought. Things aren’t made any easier with a technical writing profession that is fragmented on the true role of the technical writer.

Here are some ways organizations sabotage their own technical documentation:

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Courseware Development Productivity Project Communications Technical Writing

Do Organizations Really Need Style Guides?

August 12, 2011 – 12:00 pm

Do organizations really need technical documentation style guides? It’s a question that rises on online forums every so often and today’s ever tightening workplace budgets should also put the role of the technical documentation style guide under the spotlight as well as organizations try to squeeze even more productivity out of their technical documentation dollars.

My answer to the style guide question is “Yes, organizations do need a style guide but it shouldn’t dominate the documentation development life cycle.”  With the prevalence of online documentation and the web to deliver information plus more iterative development and launch cycles, the style guide should foster productivity and consistency not stand as a roadblock in the way of technical writers and training developers making deadlines.

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iPad iPhone Mobile Devices Productivity

iWork for the iPhone

June 11, 2011 – 1:00 pm

I’ve had a simmering interest in Office applications for mobile devices including the iPhone in particular. Therefore, since I already run iWork on my iPad, I downloaded the iWork apps for my iPhone when they first came available to me on the App Store.

Pages. Numbers, and KeyNote – the apps comprising iWork – are now considered “universal apps” meaning they work on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad. While my relationship with its Mac cousins can be described as off and on, I do use iWork and especially Pages on my iPad for reviewing documents (file attachments in particular). With the release of iWork for iPhone, I am hoping to use these apps the same way on my phone. I am looking forward to seeing how Apple can bring iWork syncing altogether with the upcoming launch of iCloud.

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Macintosh Web/Tech

5 Questions I have about iCloud

June 9, 2011 – 7:26 pm

I was out most of the afternoon during the WWDC Keynote address but caught up on my news that night. While the OS X Lion and iOS 5 announcements show a lot of potential, I am still holding my judgment over iCloud. Don’t get me wrong, the cloud is one area that seems to continually elude Jobs and Apple but I would like to see them turnaround their cloud strategy once and for all.

Here are my five questions about iCloud:

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Contracting Job Hunting Projects Technical Writing Work

Seeking Part-Time Technical Writing Projects

March 19, 2011 – 2:54 pm

I am now available for part-time technical writing projects that can be accomplished from my home office.  Currently, my availability is 15-20 hours per week and I am able to make conference calls towards the end of the business day EST. My strong and diverse technical writing experience  includes:

  • Writing articles on technology and project management related topics for publication
  • Writing user guides and online help for cloud based applications
  • Reviewing and updating legacy technical documents
  • Conducting technical reviews on computer book manuscripts

You can read more about my technical writing experience on my professional site or LinkedIn profile. Please contact me for further information about my availability for technical writing projects.

 
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Downfall of Tech Docs Project Management Technical Writing

Why Johnny Can’t Document a Product

February 19, 2011 – 3:37 pm

A lot of my technical writing career has been spent as a contractor and consultant working with organizations that didn’t have technical documentation in place and need it in place fast. Throughout my travels, I’ve also spoken to even more organizations through the course of interviewing for potential projects. One thing I’ve learned is that Johnny can’t document a product.

Creating technical documentation isn’t rocket science nor does it require a select caste of individuals. A replicable process, some standards, maybe some templates, and oh yeah some common sense can really help your technical documentation efforts go the distance.

While some of the reasons why Johnny can’t document a product, these issues can sneak up an ultimately sabotage a documentation effort and ultimately the entire project.

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