Musings on Technical Writing

Musings on Technical Writing

A Technical writer assumes lucidity and simplicity to mask sophistication and intricacy.

What is technical writing? This question is bound to irritate many a professional technical writers. But it could as well be considered the most encountered of questions by every technical writer. I have been in the field of technical writing for quite a few years now; yet I have seen blank expressions on faces of quite a few acquaintances, whenever I took reference to my profession. I am neither surprised nor bothered as I myself was an amateur in the field of technical writing.

It really threw me off-balance the day when I was presented with an option to accept technical writing as my career; and that too at an age when I should not be thinking of options. I took up technical writing at the age of 42; previously I was in an entirely different profession.
So what exactly is Technical Writing? This question crossed my mind too, when I was about to take a dive into the realm of technical writing. The answer to this, I want to keep a little longer coming.
Till the time I could join as a technical writer, I sweltered in air-tight cubicles of the net centers around every nook and corner (I did not have an internet connection that time) trying to amass as much information about technical writing, as I could. If I were to say that I might have literally taken every CPU into my hands and shook them violently till all the content relevant to technical writing fell before me, it would not be an exaggeration. There was a determination, a burning desire and a cherishing ambition to pursue a career that suited my line of interest—writing.
It did not take me long to realize from the days’ of hard work, that technical writing is not that technical after all! I realized that it requires one to peruse entirety of an entity in a single instance through close scrutiny and remember to use it at an appropriate place and instance. I have come to realize that a shrewd outlook, impeccable observation, terrific analyzing capability and good learning ability are some of the traits that help in the making of a good technical writer.
To focus on how essentially technical writing is relevant to a layperson, I could say that the labor of a technical writer could as well be found in the cozy comforts of their home itself.
A free booklet in the form of an instructional manual, packaged along with an electronic or electric item is sure to lie unused in any home today. Probably, people may have just left them unopened; disposed them or kept them along with the empty cartons up in their attics. What they have missed out is a point in question—these booklets have definitely been prepared by professional technical writers. The Help Guides that accompany any software, for instance the world’s most famous Microsoft® Windows operating system, (either in electronic or printed form) is the outcome of painstaking efforts of the technical writers. Every one who uses the Microsoft® Office, one time or the other would have clicked on the Help menu, that opens in a new window a specific instructional guide on how to use a sought after functionality. These online help guides therefore go after a maze of efforts involving a brilliant team of technical writers. As one can determine now, one of the basic functions of a technical writer is to write standard operating procedures on how to use a product or service.
A company that sales an electronic or electrical product distributes a free booklet along with every product to its consumers—a product manual, installation manual or a user manual that provides details about the product’s technical and functional specifications. The contribution of a technical writer therefore comes in to play here. A technical writer has a major role in preparation of a detailed step-by-step instructional guide or a how-to guide that explains every single operation pertaining to a product or service: from switching it on, using it properly to switching it off. Technical writers also provide remedial measures for trouble shooting, the implications of error notifications and the decisions required to be taken on expected errors, during the operation of equipment or software. A technical writer is the one who is supposed to know how to operate equipment before hand and write clear and concise instructional guide on how to operate the equipment through comprehensive operating procedures and through self-explanatory illustrations where ever required. Besides, a technical writer is required to gather technical specifications of the product and represent them in easy understandable format. Above that a technical writer is required to find a remedy for trouble shooting and write procedures on how to avoid or come out of such troubling times.
While every process follows a life cycle from beginning to the end, software development is monitored for perfection using a Software Development Life Cycle. Parallel to the Software Life Cycle Development, technical writing involves the Document Development Life Cycle, that ensures proper utilization of the services of a technical writer for documenting the involved procedures and process. The contribution of a technical writer is therefore of unmatched magnitude in the development of a superior software product or service.
Last but not the least, technical writers are required to maintain easy language flow, consistency, syntax, style, correctness and continuity throughout the entire document they write. They should always avoid being gender specific. Besides being fluent and adept in the language of communication, technical writers are required to learn and become masters of documentation tools like the MS Office, MS Visio, RoboHelp, PhotoShop, SnagIT, HTML, XML Scripting etc.

Technicality and complexity is veiled by simplicity as guided to perfection by a crafted Technical Writer.