Tech Writer Today Magazine - TechWhirl
Technical writing and technical communications news, articles and resources for technical writers and technical communicators.
When considering going into the freelance writing business, one of the hardest questions you have to ask yourself is: “How do I make a real living doing this job?” If you've been working as a full-time employee for awhile, that question becomes “Can I maintain my existing standard of living working as a freelancer?” Continue reading ...
You may not have known it, but September 23 was International Freelancers Day, as declared by the International Freelancers Academy, a training company who sponsored a daylong set of webinars providing inspiration and practical advice to freelancers of all types. Among the webinar presenters that day was Steve Slaunwhite, author of The Wealthy Freelancer and small business marketing coach. Let's take a closer look at LinkedIn tools, with some thoughts on how to apply Slaunwhite's tips to technical communication careers. Continue reading ...
If you’re a student or a recent grad, you may believe that you don’t know anyone who can help you get into the workplace. However, even as a student in an online course, you can take advantage of relationships built in the online classroom to get your foot in the door for good technical communications positions. Continue reading ...
What value could Twitter possibly add to your technical communications career? If you are not a Twitter user, you might think that Twitter is not interesting enough for you to bother with. If you are Twitter user, you might think that Twitter is entertaining, but it is basically full of useless information and that it definitely has no value as a professional networking tool. Until recently, as a casual Twitter user, my opinion of Twitter was a mix of the previous two viewpoints; however, this changed Continue reading ...
Tom Murrell outlines how someone can create a t-letter and use it during their job search. Continue reading ...
Not many of us started off here. Although it seems that the field has been growing steadily for twenty years, there haven’t historically been a lot of technical writing programs, and thus most technical writers began their professional lives as…something else. Of the technical writers I heard from, only four had been through a dedicated [...] Continue reading ...
At some point in your technical communications career (and probably at most of them), you will be asked to sign a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before beginning work for an employer or client. Like most professionals, you plan on doing great work, and want to be able to show future employers and clients exactly what kind of technical communications masterpieces you can produce. But you’ve got to sign that NDA, and it’s gnawing at you how you’ll be able to show your capabilities without divulging information that could impact the company that hired you. Continue reading ...
Here are two questions to ask yourself: 1) when are you most content? (Not ‘happy’ per se, since happy moments are fleeting. 2) Does contentment ever happen for you during the workday? The average American worker spends 2080 hours per year on paid work. Over 30 years, that adds up to 62,400 hours. That’s a [...] Continue reading ...
I entered this career using a combination of persistence and dumb luck. I wanted to become a tech writer when I was in college, but the career ladder didn’t exist then as it does now. My parents cautioned me not to pursue it. They didn’t understand that one could make a living by writing instructions. [...] Continue reading ...