Technical Writing

Communicating in writing is not something that everyone does well. I've known a number of people who scoff at the concept of grammar. I've also worked with a few who believed that unless a sentence was long and scholarly, it had to be inferior. My theory is that it doesn't matter whether a sentence is short or long--if there's a high probabilty that it can be interpreted in more than three ways, it's just not a successful form of communication!

Technical writing takes the craft of writing and teams it up with making a variety of technical topics more understandable to a broader audience. My goals as a technical writer include providing background materials for those who are learning about the topic for the first time, instructional language for those who need to do something related to the topic, and a global overview of how the topic fits into the big picture.

So then, What's a Technical Communicator?

I prefer to write for a non-technical audience, and I strongly believe that everything should include information that reaches both right- and left-brain learners. Simply put, combining pictures with words offers the best solution for reaching the broadest audience.

I believe that those of us who rely strongly on both imagery and language to convey ideas really are a slightly different breed of technical writers known as technical communicators. We are a "full-service shop" that creates illustrations, photographs, page layout, and writing. Similarly, technical writers use all of the same elements to produce a final written product complete with visual elements, by partnering with a designer to create the illustrations, modify the photographs, and place the information creatively on a page. I've worked in both capacities, but definitely like to be directly involved in both the graphic and verbal processes.

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