Good News and Bad News
The good news is, I’m swamped with work.
The bad news is, I don’t have time to devote to my blog. I’m going offline for a few months—in the meantime, please enjoy these random quotes about writing.
“Writing well means never having to say, ‘I guess you had to be there.’” – Jef Mallett
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” —Elvis Costello
“A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
“Advice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.” —Stanislaw J. Lec
“The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.” —Edwin Schlossberg
“Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren’t distracted by the tootal lack of content in your writing.” —Randy K. Milholland [Typo added]
Topics to Watch For
What topics is this blog going to cover? Glad you asked!
I will be focusing on basic skills and information for first-time, untrained, or junior technical writers, particularly those who are working solo—a documentation team of one. I will be writing about:
Basic technical writing skills
- How to write a procedure.
- How to use graphics effectively.
- Why consistency is important—and how to check for it.
Necessary (and sometimes nasty) technical writing tools
- Style guides and templates (and how to build your own).
- Software (for writing, creating graphics, building Websites, and so on).
- Online resources you cannot work without.
Big-picture concepts
- Making your writing ‘invisible’ to the reader.
- Writing task-oriented documentation.
- Laying out your document for easy reading.
Little-picture concepts
- Why relying on spell-check and find-and-replace can get you into big trouble!
- Why parallel structure is important.
- When to label (or not label) your tables and images.
The job of a technical writer
- Doing quick and cheap usability testing on your documents.
- Creating a portfolio for yourself.
- Finding the information sources you need within your project team.
Best of all, I hope to answer your questions, spark some conversations, and build a little community of people who want to lend and draw support from each other.
This Blog Launches May 2011!
Come back soon to read my new blog for beginner technical writers, launching May 2011.
