Technical Writer Write technical materials, such as equipment manuals, appendices, or operating and maintenance instructions. May assist in layout work.
Technical Writer is Also Know as
In different settings, Technical Writer is titled as
- Documentation Designer
- Documentation Specialist
- Engineering Writer
- Information Developer
- Medical Writer
- Narrative Writer
- Requirements Analyst
- Technical Communicator
- Technical Writer
Education and Training of Technical Writer
Technical Writer is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Technical Writer
A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
Education Required for Technical Writer
Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
Degrees Related to Technical Writer
- Bachelor in Technical and Scientific Communication
- Associate Degree Courses in Technical and Scientific Communication
- Masters Degree Courses in Technical and Scientific Communication
- Bachelor in Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences Commun
- Associate Degree Courses in Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences Commun
- Masters Degree Courses in Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences Commun
- Bachelor in Writing, General
- Associate Degree Courses in Writing, General
- Masters Degree Courses in Writing, General
- Bachelor in Professional, Technical, Business, and Scientific
- Associate Degree Courses in Professional, Technical, Business, and Scientific
- Masters Degree Courses in Professional, Technical, Business, and Scientific
- Bachelor in Business/Corporate Communications, General
- Associate Degree Courses in Business/Corporate Communications, General
- Masters Degree Courses in Business/Corporate Communications, General
- Bachelor in Grantsmanship
- Associate Degree Courses in Grantsmanship
- Masters Degree Courses in Grantsmanship
Training Required for Technical Writer
Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Technical Writer in different industries are
- Document Management Specialists
- Editors
- Clinical Data Managers
- Writers and Authors
- Software Developers
- Project Management Specialists
- Computer Systems Analysts
- Social Science Research Assistants
- Proofreaders and Copy Markers
- Electrical and Electronics Drafters
- Statistical Assistants
- Industrial Engineers
- Data Scientists
- Database Administrators
- Information Technology Project Managers
- File Clerks
- Operations Research Analysts
- Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians
- Correspondence Clerks
- Database Architects
What Do Technical Writer do?
- Organize material and complete writing assignment according to set standards regarding order, clarity, conciseness, style, and terminology.
- Maintain records and files of work and revisions.
- Edit, standardize, or make changes to material prepared by other writers or establishment personnel.
- Confer with customer representatives, vendors, plant executives, or publisher to establish technical specifications and to determine subject material to be developed for publication.
- Review published materials and recommend revisions or changes in scope, format, content, and methods of reproduction and binding.
- Select photographs, drawings, sketches, diagrams, and charts to illustrate material.
- Study drawings, specifications, mockups, and product samples to integrate and delineate technology, operating procedure, and production sequence and detail.
- Interview production and engineering personnel and read journals and other material to become familiar with product technologies and production methods.
- Observe production, developmental, and experimental activities to determine operating procedure and detail.
- Arrange for typing, duplication, and distribution of material.
- Assist in laying out material for publication.
- Analyze developments in specific field to determine need for revisions in previously published materials and development of new material.
- Review manufacturer's and trade catalogs, drawings and other data relative to operation, maintenance, and service of equipment.
- Draw sketches to illustrate specified materials or assembly sequence.
- Develop or maintain online help documentation.
Qualities of Good Technical Writer
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
Tools Used by Technical Writer
- Compact digital cameras
- Computer data input scanners
- Desktop computers
- Laptop computers
- Personal computers
- Universal serial bus USB flash drives
Technology Skills required for Technical Writer
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe Captivate
- Adobe Creative Cloud software
- Adobe Dreamweaver
- Adobe FrameMaker
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe InDesign
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe RoboHelp
- Apple Final Cut Pro
- Atlassian Confluence
- Atlassian JIRA
- Author-it
- Autodesk AutoCAD
- Blink
- Cascading style sheets CSS
- Corel CorelDraw Graphics Suite
- Corel Paint Shop Pro
- Corel Ventura
- Darwin information typing architecture DITA
- Dassault Systemes CATIA
- Dassault Systemes SolidWorks
- Drupal
- Dynamic hypertext markup language DHTML
- Epic Systems
- Extensible hypertext markup language XHTML
- Extensible markup language XML
- FileMaker Pro
- Git
- GitHub
- Google Sites
- Hypertext markup language HTML
- IBM Cognos Business Intelligence
- IBM Notes
- IBM Rational ClearCase
- IBM Rational ClearQuest
- JavaScript
- JustSystems XMetaL
- MadCap Software MadCap Flare
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft ASP.NET
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Project
- Microsoft Publisher
- Microsoft SharePoint
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services SSRS
- Microsoft Visio
- Microsoft Visual Basic
- Microsoft Word
- Objective C
- Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer
- Oracle E-Business Suite Financials
- Oracle Java
- Oracle JavaServer Pages JSP
- ParentSquare
- Perforce Helix software
- PHP
- PTC Arbortext
- PTC Creo Parametric
- Quadralay WebWorks ePublisher
- SAP Business Objects
- SAP Crystal Reports
- SAS
- Standardized general markup language SGML
- Structured query language SQL
- Talisma Knowledgebase
- Web browser software