Re: Technical writing

[Dick Price <DPrice -at- COMPUTER -dot- ORG>]

     Elaine,

     For what it's worth, I'll share my experience as a technical editor
     and writer. I got my first technical editing job in 1981, and
     currently work as associate editor of two computer magazines (IEEE
     MICRO and IEEE DESIGN & TEST OF COMPUTERS). I graduated from the
     University of Minnesota with a degree in English where I had taken a
     number of journalism courses, along with a smattering of science
     classes. I had no thought of becoming a technical writer and took no
     courses to prepare for that field. I thought I might become a
     reporter.

     Instead, I spent several years bartending, owning a bar, and helping
     to run a construction company with my three brothers. In 1981, the
     real estate market here in LA had gone to hell, so I got a job at
     Hughes Aircraft, working as a technical editor in a publications
     department. We put out manuals, proposals, and reports having to do
     with radar, microwave communications, and gallium arsenide chip
     manufacture. I didn't know anything about any of these disciplines
     going in, but I was a good writer and editor. Even when I was tending
     bar or pounding nails, I was always working on my writing -- trying to
     get stories published, taking extension classes at UCLA, endless
     reading.

     All told, I spent eight years at Hughes in two spurts, during which I
     learned enough about the various technologies at my part of the
     company to become quite conversant with them. I went from proofreading
     and copyediting the writing of others -- mostly engineers, mostly
     foreign born -- to writing proposals largely on my own. My pay
     increased accordingly: I was making about $50,000 when I was laid off
     as part of the fall-off of defense work out here.

     Actually, I wasn't terribly upset at being laid off. The money was
     good, but I didn't find the work terribly satisfying. (I'm a Vietnam
     vet, not a terribly disgruntled one, but what we were building, and
     what it was designed to be used for, never quite sat right with me.)
     For satisfaction, I also wrote grant proposals for a charity -- a
     halfway house for alcoholics and addicts near my home.

     After getting laid off, I answered an ad for my current job with the
     Computer Society. I edit highly technical articles about computer
     science, and occasionally get to write a department of my own, either
     by interviewing some leading light in the field or investigating an
     interesting application of computers. Years ago, I had wanted to
     become a journalist, and now I have. My next step will be to get good
     enough at magazine journalism to take over one of the 10 publications
     we put out, or better to move to a more personally interesting
     political or social magazine. For that, my wife, daughter, and I may
     want to move to San Francisco or Santa Fe.

     All this is way more than you want to hear, but I do have a couple of
     points:

     First, writing and editing ability is far more important in this line
     of work than knowledge of a particular technical field, at least I've
     found it so. No matter how much you might know about some technology
     -- computers, radar, whatever -- it will change incredibly quickly.
     New terminology, new technologies, new everything: better to have good
     language skills, a logical mind, and a willingness to learn. Engineers
     who come here to edit and write for our computer magazines often get
     bogged down in making their points clearly and convincingly.

     Second, I got my Hughes job by starting out on a temporary assignment
     -- I was called a consultant, but it wasn't much removed from being a
     Kelley Girl. I worked my butt off, impressed a few people, and got
     hired on full time. It was a standard way to get into any of the big
     aerospace companies out here. (They aren't taking much of a risk, as
     they can just tell you not to come back after lunch, and don't have to
     worry about unemployment, benefits, or any of that.)

     Third, I regularly pick up copies of the Santa Fe and San Francisco
     papers where my wife and I are thinking of moving. If I see an ad, I
     send out a feeler. I've got some nibbles that way, though nothing
     tempting as yet.

     Fourth, with all the aerospace workers that have gotten downsized, as
     they say, out here in California, there aren't many strictly technical
     editing jobs to go around. I'd look elsewhere.

     Finally, I look at myself as a writer and editor first, and then as a
     technical writer. There's no need to limit myself, especially as the
     skills I use as a technical editor -- facility with language, logical
     approach, constant learning while doing -- apply other places as well.

     Hope that helps.

     Dick Price
     dprice -at- computer -dot- org