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Subject:Re: Is tech writing for me? From:Jan Henning <henning -at- r-l -dot- de> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 1 May 2002 23:33:35 +0200
>This leads me to today's query. Have any of you ever given someone "sample
>assignments" to work on so that they might get a better feel for the work?
I have done so on occasion. My usual test assignment is to describe
SimpleText or Notepad, i.e., a very simple piece of software.
Everybody has enough factual knowledge for the task (If somebody has not,
he or she needs to learn more before thinking of becoming a tech writer.)
so it really depends on how good the descriptive powers of the person are.
Similar tasks I have heard of are describing a ballpoint pen or other
simple device. Again, the idea is to eliminate problems because of
insufficient knowledge and show the writing capabilites.
(Because Andrew Plato is no longer with us, I'm going to reprimand myself
here: To be a successful tech writer, you also need technical knowledge
plus the ability to ferret out what you do not know. This is not tested
by the above process.)
>I do not know software like Pagemaker and Quark, although learning new
>software doesn't bother me at all. What I'm concerned with at the moment is
>deciding on something I'll be good at and happy with before I jump in.
Neither PageMaker nor QuarkXpress are tech writing applications - they
are page layout programs suitable for individually designed pages.
The most common tech writing applications these days are FrameMaker and
Word. QuickSilver (ex Interleaf) and TeX are also used but are much less
common. (To be honest, PageMaker, QuarkXpress, and InDesign are also used
for technical documentation, but this is a topic not suited for polite
company. My advice: Don't.)
Regards
Jan Henning
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Jan Henning
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