Does a technical writer need a technical background?

As with teaching, technical writing can be described as "the art of imparting information without knowledge."

You are the advocate for the end user. Your technical skills in this case are simply to get the necessary information from the experts, then present that information to your readers, in a way that both the experts and the readers are pleased with the results. I kid, I kid.

Seriously, given the necessary interviewing, research and writing skills (without which you'd be one of the experts, not one of the writers), a genuine interest in the topic area is helpful. Experts generally love to talk about their favorite subjects, and welcome a sympathetic audience.

posted over 13 years ago

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Orbital Bundle‭

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No, you don't need to have taken classes or earned a degree in your area. What you really need is an insatiable curiosity. One of the best examples I know of this is Martin Gardner, who for over 20 years wrote a column for Scientific American called Mathematical Games. He is given much credit for the popularization of recreational mathematics in the 20th century.

According to wikipedia: "Ironically, Gardner had problems learning calculus and never took a mathematics course after high school." As I recall, Gardner credited his lack of training in mathematics for some of the success of his column. Each month for his column, he had to learn about the topic, before he could teach it to his audience.

posted over 12 years ago

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Dan C‭

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Short answer: no.

Nevertheless, it's a plus. It is good to have a deep knowledge of the field you write about, so your documents have more weight and insight.

I'd choose, given the same writing skill level, a person with technical background over one with no technical background, if what I'm looking for is technical documents.

Why not have the edge, if you can? Make sure you're a great writer, or get work with whatever subject you're going to write about, but do land the gigs.

posted almost 14 years ago

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iajrz‭

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I am an experienced technical writer specializing in API documentation. In my experience, in order to be successful a technical writer needs enough technical aptitude to (1) understand the users' needs and (2) probe the subject-matter experts (SMEs). If all you're going to do is parrot what the SMEs tell you, you're going to miss important details. SMEs (in any field) have blind spots; they've been living in the depths of their code so long that they can forget that the "obvious" assumptions aren't obvious. They also tend to have a particular model of how users will use their product, which might be more speculative than reality-based. (I'm not criticizing them; they often don't have enough information.) It's the technical writer's job to dig into all that. (Also the tester's, if you have one.)

When I hire technical writers I look for a certain threshold of writing skill but then I look for technical aptitude. I'd rather have a competent writer who understands the technology than a writer who produces excellent prose but needs lots of help to figure out what to write. It's easier to help the competent writer improve writing than it is to help somebody deeply understand the relevant technology.

posted over 13 years ago

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Monica Cellio‭ staff

2514 reputation 51 268 361 110

From my experience, not explicitly. But a technical writer does need to understand what they are writing about in order to communicate it effectively. If you'd like a book on the subject, Technical Communication by Mike Markel is an excellent resource for all aspects of technical writing and communication.

posted almost 14 years ago

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System‭

3226 reputation 147 215 553 0

Technical writing is a three legged stool. To do it well and efficiently, you need three things:

• Sufficient knowledge of the user's task to figure out what they need to know and how to communicate it to them.

• Sufficient knowledge of the technology to figure out how it works and what you need to say about it, and to ask the developers the right questions.

• Sufficient knowledge of writing and publishing to actually create a comprehensible and usable work.

Can organizations find tech writers with all three of these skills? Often they cannot, therefore they often have to settle for only one or two.

Do organizations all understand that technical writing is a three legged stool? No, sometimes they just want someone to do the words or someone to make the document look pretty.

Organizations who don't know that they need all three legs of the stool will careen from one communications disaster to another until they figure out that they do need all three. Then they will face the problem that it is very difficult to find a person with all three, especially for the salary they are willing to pay.

At that point they have to decide which of the three they can manage without. This will depend on the product and the market. If they are delivering a consumer product, the first leg is actually pretty easy, so they may focus on the other two.

If the market is highly technical, they may focus more on the first leg.

If they are desperately pressed for developer cycles in their production process, they may focus on the second leg in order to minimize the time that tech comm takes away from their development schedule.

Because of these different reactions to the scarcity of people with all three skills who are willing to work for the wages offered, you can get a job with only two, or sometimes only one of the three legs, but different opportunities will be open depending on which legs you have.

And, of course, both the first and second legs are more or less specific to particular industries. You can be have exemplary task knowledge of accounting software, for instance, but be entirely unsuited to tech writing for medical devices.

In short, it depends. Technical writing is not a generic commodity and you can be eminently qualified for one job and hopelessly unqualified for another.

posted over 7 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

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