Personal Statement on the Field

Technical Communicators are the kind of people who read instruction manuals to relax.

We appreciate the skill it takes to not only write words, but also to cull them.

We get creative to describe things in as few words as possible.

One of the things that I appreciate most about technical communications is that, depending on the end user, technical writing isn’t always “technical.” Isaac Asimov slayed it when he wrote that Antarctica’s Don Juan Pond contains “about as much water as a typical American living room,” which is much easier to visualize than “approximately 10,771 gallons.”

Here’s my take:

What is a TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION?

Technical communicators write the things that people read because they have to, not because they want to - instruction manuals, tables of content, quick start guides, and the like. Technical communications aims to lay low. People don’t always notice when technical communication is “done well,” but they certainly notice when it isn’t.

What’s the difference between Technical Communication and Technical Writing?

There are many means of instruction, and Technical Communication encompasses all of them - videos, audio recordings, and writing (to include website content and blogging). A Technical Writer is a Technical Communicator, but a Technical Communicator isn’t necessarily a Technical Writer.

THE NATURE OF A TECHNICAL WRITER

Technical Writers need people skills to coax information from different experts, a logical mind to translate and structure that information, and a creative bend to present it. Most people identify as either “left” or “right” brained, but we are both. I test precisely 50% each. Spot on!

TECHNICAL WRITING

There are many niches within Technical Writing: software documentation, finance, cybersecurity, healthcare, etc. AI is an exciting niche.

Since the content matter can be dense and experience breeds efficiency, technical writers typically eventually specialize. Those familiar with an industry are valuable to it. My background touches on administration, finance, and HR, in the food, nonprofit, education, and ecommerce industries.

However, we don’t need to be experts to write on a topic. We use our training to systematically approach issues to bridge the gap between the Subject Matter Experts (SME) and the end-users. The SMEs need to know at least certain aspects of the subject inside-out, the end-users need to know how the issue applies to them, and we need to know how to translate.