ABSTRACT
Technical writing has come into its own as a profession, with college and university degree programs, professional societies, and professional journals. Still, many technical writers come to the profession from other fields. The best preparation is to be able to write well, be curious about how products work, and have well developed people skills. To produce a good manual, a technical writer must not only know how to write effectively, explaining complex products to users, but also must know how to get information. Products often continue development almost to the time they are shipped. Having up-do-date information is critical, especially if your company practices concurrent development of product and manual. The successful manual writer must develop relationships company-wide, across organizational divisions. Managing the technical publications function requires the ability to estimate project time and cost accurately, and that requires good record keeping. Working with the service department and legal department to document technical assistance requests and injury claims can demonstrate how better product documentation can reduce service costs and liability exposure.
