Re: Why You NEED to be technical - BUT WHEN YOU'RE NOT!

["neha ." <snehasn -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

This is an important question. It speaks to what makes a good technical 
writer. The reason we question how *technical* a tech writer should be is 
probably because many of us are not technical (enough).

Obviously being *technical* is a matter of degrees; and knowing the inner 
workings of a product is also a matter of degrees. The more you understand, 
the more likely you are to achieve the things Andrew Plato mentioned 
(accuracy/reliability, comprehensiveness, extracting/assessing pointed 
information from SMEs, and so on.)

AND the less you understand what a product does and how it does it, the 
harder it is to collect and evaluate information, and write for the user, 
particularly advanced users.

But sometimes it is not possible to be technical enough. Especially when 
employers have a hard time finding people with both the appropriate 
technical knowledge AND the writing skills.

So then what do you do? One thing we DON'T want is to find ourselves being a 
technical writer who struggles with highly technical information, digests it 
half-way, and writes detailed content that is irrelevant and confusing - 
making the product harder to use than it is. (Incidentally, I have seen this 
happen even when a subject matter expert writes a user guide, and includes 
too many irrelevant details; and leaves out or buries useful procedural 
information.)

So let us say you are hired to document a rocket-science product that is 
without question beyond your understanding (for example, laser radar 
technology).

One way to handle the situation is (after being up-front in resume and 
interview) to wear your editor's hat on top of your writer's hat. That is to 
say, guide the subject matter experts in articulating, in writing and 
through taped interviews, information such as inner workings; key functions, 
and procedures. Email follow-up questions to the techies and customer 
support folks; and have them answer in writing or taped interviews.  Then 
EDIT their answers; have them review your edits. Understand who the typical 
reader is, and and go through the text as a substantive editor. Your skill 
as a technical writer will show up in the follow-up questions you ask; and 
in the structure/organization and the quality of writing that ends up in the 
user guide.

The job is not easy, but someone's gotta do it :)

-Neha Sharad

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