G'Day docs-discuss,
Speaking for the many customers I've worked with, priorities for technical
documentation are:
1) accuracy
2) relevance
Style is important too, but I'd be careful to balance it with a focus on
technical content - which is most important.
Another important point is that as a technical writer you should be
prepared to document topics for the first time - ie, the primary source
of documentation. This will mean a good techincal understanding of the
problem space, including how customers currently achieve tasks and how
new technologies should be used. This may be best gained if you have
actually been a customer for a number of years. There will also be
times where source code should be examined for answering deeper questions.
Brendan
On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 08:26:02AM -0600, elw at stderr.org wrote:
>
> > In summary,
> > - Engineering
> > - Masters degree
> > - Bachelor's degree with technical writing and/or literature credits
> > - Others with established technical writing skills.
>
>
>
> Graduate programs in Technical Communication and Professional Writing are
> typical sources for skilled technical writers.
>
> These folks can be much simpler to work with than engineering graduates.
>
> Purdue's TC program would be an interesting one to try to coordinate
> something with: they have a large and active writing program as well as a
> campus with serious Solaris expertise available nearby.
>
> --elijah
> _______________________________________________
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> docs-discuss at opensolaris.org
--
Brendan
[CA, USA]
