Tech Writer This Week for October 11, 2012

Tech Writer This Week for October 10, 2012 – TechWhirl

TechWhirl’s Weekly Roundup of the best technical communication and technical writing posts on the web.

Storified by · Thu, Oct 11 2012 06:44:48

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Like chilly Autumn rains, technical communication commentary and observation keep pouring in.

In Technical Communication, Andrew Brooke (techwriters-world.blogspot.com) discusses the importance of keeping your mouth shut — and honoring confidentiality. Guest writer Steve Goldberg (idratherbewriting.com) does a Q&A on professional technical writing careers. Jamie Gillenwater (newsletter.stc-carolina.org) interviews Andrew Malcolm, who started technical writing in the mid-1950s.

Content Strategy, features Mark Baker (everypageispageone.com) discussing the necessity of having a branched content strategy, knowing when to push what documentation — and when not to. Kat French (socialmediaexplorer.com) asks if your content tells your customer’s story. We offer a post comparing content creation with content curation, and Ben Richardson (contentequalsmoney.com) shares content writing tips from Oscar Wilde.

Opening the door into User Experience, we have Jodie Moule (netmagazine.com) talking about validating your planned user experience, and Rebecca Albrand (uxmatters.com) discusses the many hats worn by usability professionals.

In Career and Life, Dick Miller (easywriterpdx.blogspot.com) extolls the virtues of working remotely, and Julio Vasquez (sdicorp.com) tells us why the instructions we write *are* important.

We wrap this week with a farewell to Edwin Steinberg, who founded Carnegie Mellon University’s B.S. degree program in tech writing in 1958. He died October 2 at age 91.

Technical Communication

Tech Writer Confidential | A Tech Writer's World3 days ago … What does a doctor, lawyer, and priest have in common? A very special arrangement with their users which ensures total c…
Professional Technical Writing Careers – Questions and Answers, by Steve GoldbergDuring the fall and winter semesters, tech comm professors often ask students to interview professional technical writers to get a better…
50 Years in the Making: An Interview with Andrew Malcolm : Carolina CommuniquéCarolina Communiqué, the newsletter of the STC Carolina Chapter. Creating and supporting a forum for communities of practice in the profe…

Content Strategy

Differential Content Strategy – Every Page is Page OneTraditionally, the content strategy for technical communications has tended to be undifferentiated. That is, organizations would define t…
Storytelling and Content StrategyI bet you thought I was going to write about analytics and content strategy again, didn’t you? Or possibly a further discussion of data s…
Content Creation Vs. Content Curation | Small Business MavericksShould you create your own content or become a curator of content, a practice that involves pulling together resources from various place…
Content Writing Tips from Oscar WildeIf you’ve never read Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, I guarantee you that you’ll find it more amusing than whatever re-run…

User Experience

Validate your planned user experience | Tutorial | .net magazineThis article first appeared in the book Killer UX Design by Jodie Moule – this chapter offers insight into UX prototyping, testing and va…
The Many Hats of a Usability Professional :: UXmattersBy Rebecca Albrand "As a usability professional, you have to wear the hats of a facilitator, a consultant, a conversationalist, a note-ta…

Career and Life

Miller-cellaneous Ramblings: Stories from the Virtual DesktopI have worked for decades as a technical writer and editor as well as a designer and developer of technical training materials, with a li…
What you write is important > Systems Documentation, Inc. > SDI Blog | Technical Writing & Technical Communication TrendsBy Julio Vazquez posted on October 04, 2012 09:01 It’s been a while since I’ve written something in this blog. I guess that’s a good thin…

Obituary

Obituary: Carnegie Mellon’s Erwin R. Steinberg, Legendary English Professor Helped Found Technical Writing Field and Worked Tirelessly To Improve Education-Carnegie Mellon News – Carnegie Mellon UniversityThursday, October 4, 2012 Contact: Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo@cmu.edu PITTSBURGH-Erwin R. Steinberg, professor of English and rheto…

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