Fancy being a technical writer? The following is a list of the skills that all technical writers need. If you’re preparing yourself for such type of work in the future, you may want to use this as reference for what particular tools and abilities you need to arm yourself with.
Writing Skills. Every writer needs writing skills – that’s about as obvious as it gets. If you can’t fashion a tight paragraph if your life depended on it, best seek out more training or find another field. At the bare minimum, you should be capable of writing in a clear and concise manner. The best technical writers often have a knack for drilling complex items into simpler explanations that less-capable readers can understand.
Technical Skills. You need to have some knowledge of the technical subject if you’re going to write about it. Whether it be computers, physics, engineering or law, a good store of knowledge is a requirement. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should be able to understand all the jargon and the explanations from the actual technical staff – otherwise, you’ll end up leading your readers blindly.
Tools. At this day and age, all professional writers need to be familiar with computer tools. Familiarity with Microsoft Office is a given, as well as proper facility with using grammar and writing software. More importantly, technical writers are required to find their way around publishing tools (FrameMaker, Pagemaker), documentation tools (Robohelp, Lotus Notes) and various useful web services.
There you have it – the basics that every technical writer needs. Think you got what it takes?
