Along with the degree and/or experience come the intangibles or perhaps the attitude. Our best writers are inquisitive by nature and have a passion for clear writing. In general, technical writers are in positions helping very bright people who have little patience for explaining their concepts. We need to enter their world and care enough to ask good questions to lay the groundwork for communicating their ideas. We don’t have to become engineers or programmers, but we need to get involved in their processes to gather the necessary information to communicate their message.

And hone your listening skills. Our most effective communicators are the best listeners. This may sound trite, but if you aren’t listening, you will not understand the needs of your client.

Finally, writers/communicators have to be open to new and emerging technologies for communicating the information. My career started when cut and paste literally meant to cut and paste an article on a board for production. Now we have a variety of vehicles for communicating—various software packages are available to support traditional hardcopy items (SOPs, Work Instructions, Newsletters), as well as electronic delivery via blogs, websites, and video.

So, in a nutshell, a strong candidate will have solid communication fundamentals (grammar, sentence structure, writing concepts), a passion for writing, and a very open and inquisitive mind!

That being said, experience is still a strong factor in the decision making process when hiring a new member of our staff. I love it when a recent grad can display writing experience, whether it is from writing stories for the college paper or an internship with an engineering firm. Any type of experience shines over great grades and working in fast food or some other unrelated field. You’ve got to find a way to develop a portfolio or at least verifiable experience. If you can’t find work in the field find a way to hone the skills. Freelance an article—anything.

As for degrees, clearly a technical writing (or related) degree is the best place to start. English and Creative Writing are also good to build from. Engineering can also work, but whether it’s a left brain/right brain thing or whatever—many engineers lack the passion for writing. Their passion is often focused on creating the device or program, not explaining the need for it. To them, the need (and the logic behind it) is as clear as the nose on your face! There are exceptions; Prima Communications, Inc. was founded by an engineer whose passion was in writing—a powerful combination.

But not as embarrassing as the “Pubic Schools” billboard touting the 15 best things about South Bend, Indiana’s public schools. Credit to Blue Waters Group for taking responsibility for the typo, admitting four people looked at it and didn’t see the error.

Photo by Lee MacMillan

I didn’t catch it the first time I read the sign, and spell check certainly wouldn’t help. So how can you make sure your content is correct?

5 Proofreading Tips You May Not Have Learned in Pubic School

1. Let virgin eyes read it.

If you helped write it, chances are you’ve seen it at least a dozen times. You’re probably sick of it. This increases the chance of skimming. Let fresh eyes take a look and ask them to:

2. Read it out loud.

Slowly. Someone saying “pubic” out loud in an office is going to get attention. And when that’s done, ask your proofer to:

3. Read it out loud backwards.

This will help prevent the aforementioned filling of blanks. It’s much easier to skim “pubic schools” than “schools pubic.”

4. Change Case

Depending on the letters, misspellings and missing letters can be harder to spot if your text is ALL CAPS or lowercase. Observe:

PUBIC SCHOOLS

pubic schools

The missing L is more obvious in all caps.
Change it up for review.

5. Go big.

While you’re changing the case, bump the size up. Keep going, get to one word per page. If you’re scrolling through the pages and come to one with

PUBIC

sprawled across it, you’ll probably stop the presses.

When answering the question I have to decide, hmm, do I go with the stock answer and list all the services or does the questioner want to truly engage in a conversation regarding the talent technical communicators bring to the work environment.

In answering the above I would like to share an email I recently received from Stephanie Stamm, a Prima employee for over 10 years, who has worked in a variety of assignments.

From Stephanie:

“I’m struck again by how much of my job—and I’d bet this is true of most Primas—is making sure communication is happening between various clients.

For example, I received an email today from one of the sites asking me to post a number of documents to the HR library on the plant’s SharePoint website.

She also asked me to add a “Safety” folder to the HR library and upload a document there. Well, there is a separate Safety library on each plant’s site and a similar, but not identical, document was already uploaded in that library. So I emailed her the following (copying the Safety Manager):

As far as Safety goes, there is a 1.0 Safety library where Safety documents are located. The “General Safety Work Rules” document you sent is similar to, but not exactly the same as a document that is already uploaded, 1.02 General Plant and Safety Rules. Rather than having two documents that might possibly conflict, I’d suggest you work with [your Safety Manager] to make sure all the relevant items are covered in 1.02. I won’t upload the “General Safety Work Rules” until I hear from you or [him] about that one.

I got a reply back from the Safety Manager, saying he agreed and all safety-related documents should be under the Safety library.

I guess another way to put all this is that a lot of times our job involves NOT doing exactly what we are asked to do, but figuring out what the client really needs instead.”

Technical communications is more than tools and the ability to write. A true technical communicator is going to understand the mission of the organization and the intricacies of their communications tools (both internal and external).

In addition to providing tons of information about documentation, process mapping, and other technical wizardry, we’ll be offering attendees the opportunity to film a short video resume or personal statement that they can add to their LinkedIn profile or website.

If you’re attending the expo, stop by our booth and say hello, or give us a shout on Twitter @primatweet.

Documenting plans, procedures, instructions, scientific findings, tests, or simply ideas is crucial to a job well done. The way to ensure that documentation is valuable and correct every time is by designing and using templates. A document template acts as an outline to follow when developing or documenting just about anything. A good template provides many benefits, including:

1. Consistency
   A template ensures the same points and details are related every time. There’s no need to worry about missing information or what was done or not done previously.
2. Clarity
   Templates remove the guesswork from documentation. Because information and details are outlined for the user, the purpose of the document is clear and concise, streamlining the documentation process.
3. Form
   Rather than reviewing plans or procedures that all look different and contain information in varying order, templates allow for a consistency of form that enables users to know where to find what they’re looking for in every document.
4. Completeness
   Templates ensure that all necessary information is included in a document. Each time the template is used, specific details are required to fill in the page. This makes it hard to erroneously leave something out
5. Efficiency
   Instead of rewriting entire documents each time they’re needed, templates enable a document to be created once and then reused over and over again. The only difference from document to document is the specific information being provided. This saves valuable time and money, because employees no longer have to reinvent the wheel when they work. All they have to do is open the template and start providing the required information.

Templates help make documentation manageable, reliable, and effective, and they do so through planning. By designing a template that fulfills all of the desired needs when documenting a process, procedure, test script, or anything else, a business can realize great savings on resources. And the business itself will run a lot more smoothly.

Simplify documentation by using templates. After all, a house can be built without an architect, but would you want to live in it?

For example, I have an interest in woodworking and have done some reading online, including blogs and shorter pieces where readers offer responses. I recall one particularly egregious response to a tool review. The author had some strong opinions, perhaps legitimate, but so poorly stated, with even the simplest words misspelled, that I couldn’t read it. His opinion was instantly downgraded, if not discounted altogether because of his inability to write.

Let’s imagine that this person has good woodworking skills and is trying to make a living running a woodworking business. In our tough economic times, he decides to start a website to attract enough customers to stay afloat. If he writes the text, do you suppose the site will help or hurt his business?

Consider your own business communications. How much information do you have out there, electronic or in print, and how good is it? Is it helping you? As much as it could? Remember that people judge you by the way you write, and because of that, it’s important to double- and triple-check your work.

Having been through a few audits myself, I can second Larry’s advice on how dedicating energy in document development can pay off during audits or certification evaluations. While your staff may be the experts on the information, having a professional writer assist in document development will not only ensure your documents are developed consistently and concisely, but with the years of experience our staff brings with us, will often enable us to lend additional insight and value.

Larry (or any of our other qualified, talented professionals) is available to discuss your unique documentation needs, audit plans, or how this year’s ISO requirements compare to last year’s.

Either a) someone told us to write it, b) there’s a regulation that says we need it, or c) something went wrong or was done incorrectly, so it was decided that a document should be created or modified to “fix” that problem.

Why are these reasons wrong, you ask? Because ideally, a document—a work instruction, a procedure, a manual, or yes, even a policy—should be written to inform and instruct. It should be written for the user, the reader, the operator—rather than the boss who said it needed to be written—or the FDA.

Writing for a wrong reason inevitably creates unwieldy, complicated, and redundant documents that are not useful. And the more convoluted the information, the more difficult it is to maintain that document set.

It’s a challenge to go back and undo what’s already in place. Most of us have inherited these cumbersome document sets, and reversing the trend of complex, often unnecessary documentation is not an easy task. But there is hope.

You can start by following these three simple steps:

1. Write with the audience in mind—NOT the auditor. Not your boss.
2. Say what needs to be said—nothing more, nothing less. This can be very difficult and ties directly to the first point. Too often we err on the side of including everything, but that is faulty in several respects.
3. Use pictures or visuals.

You can’t easily change what’s already in place—though sometimes the effort required to do so is well worth it—but you can try to move the trend in the right direction.

Smart docs require some planning and a lot of thought because they aren’t single pretty documents but a system of documentation that works together, is easy to use, and is rigorously logical. True smart docs can’t be developed in a silo but must be developed with the other documents in the system.

For instance, smart docs don’t repeat information in multiple places unless absolutely necessary. Information goes in the one most logical place. This sometimes requires some thinking about what that most logical place is and sometimes sparks some debate (which can be very healthy and lead to a better solution).

Smart docs also put similar information in similar documents. If information on how to operate a cartoner is in a reference manual, then information on how to operate a labeler is in a reference manual. If setup information is in a checklist on Line 2, then setup information is in a checklist for Line 6. This consistent documentation makes it easier for operators to find the information they need.

It’s not enough to have pretty documents. You need a system of smart docs.