What is technical writing?

From time to time, people ask me about technical writing and the type of work I do. As not much is known about technical writing outside of the English-speaking world, I came up with a short answer. I hope you’ll find it useful.

What is technical writing?

You may not be aware of it, but you are surrounded by technical writing.

Consider the quick guide of your washing machine, the assembly instructions of that IKEA chair you bought, or the information leaflet of the last prescription drug you’ve taken. Press F1 in any Windows application, or click Help in your favorite website. Open the glovebox of your car and browse the owner’s manual, or simply read the warnings under the hood.

All the above are technical documents authored by technical writers, who are specialized in taking complex—and often unstructured—information and producing documents that allow people to accomplish tasks or goals, like using a piece of software, taking a medicine, or driving a car. Technical documentation enables people to use products properly.

Technical writing, which is a subset of technical communication (TC), strives for clarity, accuracy, conciseness, and coherence, so that the intended audience can consume documentation easily and fast. There’s no place for poetry in TC: technical writers use simple language and short sentences, getting rid of jargon and literary expressions.

What can you do as a technical writer?

As a technical writer, I act as a bridge between tech and clients. Think of me as some sort of translator of all things technical. Among other things, I can…

• Obtain and organize technical information from subject-matter experts (SME)—that is, you— through meetings, interviews, or by reading your notes and code.
• Run and test applications using the same development tools and environments that you use, including code editors, CI tools and version control systems.
• Write how-tos, tutorials, API docs, release notes, and functional documentation for products and tech in a variety of formats, using the best tools for the job.
• Create videos/screencasts, record animations, edit screenshots with annotations and callouts, create diagrams and illustrations—TC is visual, too!
• Comment or write code snippets for developer documentation. Tech writers are usually bad coders, but that’s not bad per se.
• Write UI text, a discipline called UX Writing. Writing good user interface text is a craft in which we technical writers often dabble.
• Create simple scripts to automate documentation tasks, or test/deploy documentation tools in a development environment.
• Organize and edit internal documentation in Confluence and SharePoint, and assist teams with their product documentation.

Want to know more about what being a tech writer is like? Read Tom Johnson’s Could you please tell me what the job of a technical writer is like?