Posts Tagged ‘technical communication’
Catherine Hibbard – A Technical Communication Interview
We’re kicking off the new year with a new series of interviews with veteran technical writers and communicators. Our first guest for this column in 2012 is Catherine Hibbard of Cypress Media, a veteran writer and trainer who offers Technical Writing Training and Writing Effective Policies and Procedures Training. In January 2012, she is selected…
Read MoreTCC Honored as MindTouch's "Top 10 Most Followed" Web Site
© Ugur Akinci I’m happy to report that, thanks to you TCC readers, our Twitter account @technicalwriter has been selected by MindTouch as one of the “Top 10 Most Followed” technical communication accounts on Twitter. To be included in such a distinguished list of industry pioneers and leaders is a great honor indeed. I’d like to…
Read More2 Golden Principles of Technical Document Peer Review
There will be instances in your career as a professional writer when you will be asked to “peer review” (which is, yes, a compound “verb” these days) someone else’s work. This may happen in group meeting (or teleconference/webinar) situations when you may be invited to offer you views on how to improve a certain copy…
Read More2 File-Naming Tips for Higher Productivity
Every technical writer at some point in his or her career faces this problem until a solution is found: too many files thrown together in a folder, without any easy way to tell which is what. Here are some of my own file naming tips that have helped me a lot over the years. File…
Read MoreMust Concepts for Software Document Writers
© Ugur Akinci It helps to know what the following are if you’re documenting any software products. It cuts down on your preparation time and saves you from getting those “funny stares” from the developers/engineers when it becomes apparent that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Rule of thumb: always do your homework first…
Read MoreAuthorIt SaaS Cloud Enterprise-Level Technical Writing Platform – Selected Features
© Ugur Akinci Here are a few really cool AuthorIt features that caught my eye during a recent webinar demonstration by the company founder and CEO Paul Trotter. Searching for Content AuthorIt is a powerful structured-authoring editor that allows you to use the same chunk of content many times over. So searching for reusable content…
Read MoreOccupational Outlook for Technical Writers: My Opinions and the Facts
From time to time I hear from technical writers who had their own share from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 30s. There is no doubt, the market right now is not as good as it had been just four or five years earlier. But I still have reasons to maintain…
Read MoreTechnical Writing: Corporate Payroll or Freelancing?
Should you choose freelancing or go on a corporate payroll to work as a technical communicator? I get this question from my readers on a more or less regular basis: “Should I quit my company and set up shop as an independent entrepreneur offering technical writing services? Should I just launch a web site and…
Read MoreHow to Ensure High Quality in Technical Writing
“Can you tell us more about quality in technical writing?” a reader asked yesterday, in a private email. Here are my thoughts on the topic: 1) Quality starts with intra-team cohesion if you are working as a part of a technical writing team. If you’re a lone writer, this means you should either have your own…
Read MoreTechnical Book Review: THE STATE OF STRUCTURED AUTHORING by Alan S. Pringle and Sarah S. O’Keefe
“Structured authoring” and “single sourcing” have been hot buzz phrases for quite a few years now. If you’re a technical writer, I’m sure you’re either applying these documentation methods in your daily work, getting ready to implement them, or learning about them. I personally am in the last two categories, both still learning ins and…
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