Training for the Future

Being a student at Pittsburg State University has provided me with various opportunities to enhance my skill as a technical writer. Specifically as a technical writing student, I have been equipped with a variety of skills and learned a great deal about the technical aspects of technical/professional writing, such as language usage. However, my internship has awarded me an experience that is much more applicable to a real world setting. As Sherry Southard mentions in “Interacting Successfully in Corporate Culture”, “students need skills that will enable them to participate successfully and to make decisions even more than they need such skills to work successfully within older organizations.” My internship has provided me with just that. Through my game design internship under the Tech Writing director, I have had hands-on experience in managing an entire editing and production process. Unfortunately, as Johndan Johnson-Eilola details in his work, “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age,” technical communicators aren’t always seen as managers of the entire process, but rather “as something to be added on to a primary product…added at the end of the project (with too little time or too few staff members), or perhaps omitted entirely.” Luckily, with my internship, I have had experience as more than just support. This will undoubtedly increase my value when I go on to pursue a career.

One of the three jobs that I was interested in is an Editorial Assistant at Prufrock Press in Austin, Texas. They are looking for someone to assist with their books and classroom materials editors. Candidates for this job must possess strong editing and communication skills, be able to meet deadlines, and be comfortable with learning APA style. My internship, in conjunction with my education at Pitt State, have prepared me well for this, but I could prepare for this position by studying the APA style guide. I have had to learn to use multiple style guides in various classes, so this should not be difficult. To do so, I would likely by looking at the Purdue OWL website and buying an APA style guide. Additionally, I have learned and exercised my editing skills through my classes and my internship. In my internship, I was tasked with editing all of the text-based elements of the game, checking for consistency and correctness. Furthermore, my experience with the Cow Creek Review will also enhance my skills for this job. By working as an editor for a literary magazine, I will not only have editing experience, but publishing experience as well.

Another job that I found is a Content Editor for the Blue Monday Review in Kansas City, MO.  They are looking for someone to read, edit, and evaluate work submitted to their literary magazine. This person will read and evaluate 10-20 submissions a week. This position did not call for many qualifications, but, similar to the Prufrock Press position, I would be well-suited for this role because I have had editing experience in my internship and classes. Furthermore, I have worked on a literary magazine, so I understand how the editing and selection process works for a literary magazine. To further prepare for a position such as this, I could spend more time working for the Cow Creek Review. Additionally, I could also apply for a writing consultant position at my university’s Writing Center.

A third job I found is an Assistant Managing Editor at Allen Press, Inc. in Lawrence, KS. This company specializes in scholarly journal and special-interest publication production. Skills for this position include keeping track of manuscripts and reviews, working with Copyediting Coordinators to maintain proper style, assembling publications, and communicating with authors. For this position, my internship has assisted because I have had to essentially manage an entire editing/publication process alongside my internship director and my co-intern. But I would need to gain more experience with managing the editing process. While I am familiar with the editing process, I could gain this experience by serving as the managing editor for the Cow Creek Review or becoming a managing editor for a volunteer publication. 

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. "Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age."

Soplinsky, Emily. "Survival Skills for Communicators within Organizations."

Southard, Sherry. "Interacting Successfully in Corporate Culture."

Training for the Future

Through my time as student in Tech Writing program and as intern under the Tech Writing director I have learned much more about tech writing than I ever planned. The various professors I have had for my tech writing classes all shared or discussed what tech writing can be like in a job setting. While none of them necessarily gave students a scenario to teach the various nuances of holding a job, especially one in tech writing, like Sherry Southard suggests. They still teach us the technical aspect of tech writing, but the sharing of experience as a professional helps to bring in the less concrete skills that are hard to explicitly teach. The internship experience has really helped to branch out into the “communication” side of technical communication as Johndan Johnson calls the field. The communication side is the less concrete side of the job, but doing the research and reading for this blog has helped to understand professional life.

One job that I found that fits my skills is as a Technical Writer at RPC which is in the financial industry. They are looking for someone that can research, interview, recommend changes, write instructions, maintain writing style, peer edit, document work history, and follow through on projects. My particular internship has set me up well for something like this because I have been able to do this in some form. Creating a game has called for researching various technical writing jobs, recommending changes in game mechanics based in though out reasons, peer edit the work of my co-intern, and work on this project independently. A good way to prepare for this kind of job would to look into journals/manuals in the relevant industry and become somewhat familiar with the conventions. A publication from this list would be good place to start. 

Another job that I found is a Technical Writer at Continuum. They are looking for someone to test new software and creating documentation for that software. This person will also test other tech writer’s work, working with the creators, and making changes. This is of interest to me because it deals somewhat with web programming languages, which is my main field of study. I have also previously worked on a documentation project so I have some experience working with software and testing out the document with testers. A good place to learn web languages is codecademy.com It is a free resource that has basic and advanced tutorials and updates their content on occasion. As for testing various works, a good and fun way to do this is playtesting games. I have been given the opportunity to create and playtest games as an intern and student.

A third job I found is a Technical Writer at Corptax which deals with business process and automation solutions for corporate tax. Skills for this position include Adobe Creative Suite, HTML/XML, editing, single source authoring tool, peer reviewing, and knowledge sharing. Since I am a Graphics Communications major I am familiar with Adobe Creative Suite and HTML. My knowledge of how Content Management systems work would prepare me well for single source authoring methods. As a graphics student I have had the opportunity to ask fellow students about my work and also be able to share new knowledge with them. To keep up with changing technologies I would go to lydna.com for Adobe software and codecademy.com for web programming, but lynda.com also has good resources for the web.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. "Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age."

Soplinsky, Emily. "Survival Skills for Communicators within Organizations."

Southard, Sherry. "Interacting Successfully in Corporate Culture."

Training for the Furture

     Since my internship is coming to an end for this semester I have started to look at job opportunities. I have found three great job options for the start of my career. All three jobs are something that I would be very interested in and I think I would be very comfortable staying in the positions for some time. My internship has helped to prepare me for someone of the role requirements that all of the jobs are asking of their future employees.  Two of the jobs are located in Las Vegas, Nevada and the other is located in Washington, D.C.

     The first company is Ruby on Rails, located in Washington D.C., and they are looking for a Technical Writer who can document the architecture of the app itself. They request that the applicant has a degree in computer science, education or technical writing. I think I would already be a benefit to this company because my major is English with the emphasis in Technical Writing and a supporting minor in Computer Information Science. The company specializes in software development for learning activities for K through 3^rd-grade students in charter and private schools. This is similar to what I have been doing in my internship. I have been formatting and editing children’s literature and helping to publish them in an online forum. The company specifically wants a tech writer that is able to take the software language of their products and make them into something easily understood by the salespeople and any potential partners.

     The second company is Birtcher located in Las Vegas, NV. They are looking for a technical writer that will be able to maintain the existing document base they have, but also be able to develop new procedural documentation. The documentation will be used by the manufacturing production line, sub-assembly stations, warehouse & shipping and quality. The material and assignments that are asked of us in our classes will be great preparation for the materials this company would be asking of the technical writing employee. Something that makes this position different from a regular technical writing job is that they are asking more of their employee. Such as: meeting with individuals requesting technical documents to form relevant support materials to develop written documentation, drawings, and installation instructions. It seems that the company would like their employee to be well rounded and integrated into the company structure. This is an idea that I really like and feel would be beneficial for me because I am a people person and enjoy communicating with others.

     The third company is Konami, they specialize in systems and game development. They are specifically looking for a Technical Writer but I think I could bring more to the applicant pool because I have a minor in Computer Information Science. The basic outline for what they are asking of a future employee is to take the engineering and mechanical language that the software and games are written in and transition it into technical instructions that someone without a computer background would be able to understand easily. I think my knowledge of computer language would be very beneficial here and help to also bridge the gap that is sometimes created between software engineers and technical writers. Some of the day to day things that the company would be asking of an employee is the maintaining of documentation and templates that are preexisting. 

Training for the Future

For this blog, I found three technical writing jobs that I am interested in. The jobs are at KeyBridge Technologies in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, CoreLogic in San Diego, California, and The Aspen Institute in Washington, DC.

The first position is for a Documentation Specialist at KeyBridge Technologies in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They provide business solutions to assist organizations optimize their assets, knowledge, and service. They provide learning solutions through custom courseware development, professional support through onsite staff, information technology like web and database development, logistics support to military and Federal customers, as well as 3D Immersive Environments like high quality architectural renderings. A Documentation Specialist acts as an onsite company liason. They must analyze requirements, prepare document outlines, and develop technical content. They also write management summaries, implementation, and quality assurance plans. The skills I would learn would mostly be on the job. The technical content I would be required to know would very depending on the business I would be partnering with. The most important skill I would need to develop would be my research skill so that whichever project I was working on, I could familiarize myself with the technical content.

The second position is as a Technical Writer for CoreLogic in San Diego. CoreLogic serves financial services and insurance agencies. They gather data and analytics to help customers make smart business decisions. The Technical Writer's job is to write copy for operation and maintenance manuals and technical publications. They prepare written text and coordinate layout and organization of manuals and documents. They also edit documents and tutorials, as well as research available technical data. To prepare for this job I would need a basic knowledge of insurance. I would obtain this knowledge by taking the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Foundations of Insurance Regulation Course.

The final position is for a Editorial Associate at The Aspen Institute in Washington, DC. They are an educational and policy studies organization that fosters leadership and provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. An Editorial Associate provides editorial support to the communications department. This include writing, editing, content development, and image materials. The communications department produces materials for the institute's magazine, blog, annual report, website, brochures, collateral materials, and more. I have quite a bit of experience writing and editing for the web, but to brush up on my skills I would take a blogging course online through Full Sail University.

From Schoolroom to Workroom

Being a technical writing related intern creates an employee with the ability to work within their authority to create, edit, and interact effectively. This helps combat some of the issues Susan Katz outlines for interns trying to learn about their position and how they can best understand their authority, ability to enact change and input their ideas, and their own real job responsibilities. I am an assistant editor for The CEA Forum. I post to The CEA and The CEA Forum’s Facebook pages with articles for readers pertaining to higher education and pedagogy that they can find interesting or helpful to their own teaching styles and experiences. I also observe the processes on The CEA Forum’s website, at https://journals.tdl.org/ceaforum, for the flow of processes that users, authors, and anyone else may interact with to use the site, interact with others on it, or submit to the journal. Then, once articles are submitted and reviewed, I help proof read them again for the authors’ record and format them to the journal’s style guide for continuity, using InDesign to create an easy to read and access PDF. 

For this position, an incoming intern would need the base knowledge of technical writing for writing formal  documents for The CEA Forum’s use or for sending out to authors, reviewers, and readers. The assistant editor intern needs to have a good hold on editing, obviously, so they can edit different genres of writing and edit or rework ideas for The CEA Forum’s website, journal, and current issue being created. Also a working knowledge of InDesign would be beneficial for any intern when they are formatting articles to match the stylesheet. 

In this internship I have flexed a lot of my real core technical writing skills that do not often get exercise in a lot of other classes. That has helped me keep my knowledge of document design and writing style, like guides found in The Chicago Manual of Style that I used in a previous technical editing class, current and effective in the workplace. A lot of my experiential learning was similar to Anson and Forberg’s topic of study of interns. They examined interns to learn more about  

“how writers in a new context perceive and adapt to complex and unfamiliar audiences, how they learn to use the language of the workplace, how they make connections and distinctions between experiential and academic learning, how they describe the influence of context on their texts, how they revise those texts, and what motivates those revisions” (Anson, Forsberg 207).

I learned about my new environment and how to interact within it in a new context outside of previous classroom learning. It has been a process involving new kinds of documents and unknown territory, learning through trial and error from an editing standpoint. I found myself studying these same topics in myself to further understand how to tackle new projects. I had to learn about how to interact with previously written documents, and that actually helped a great deal with understanding the level of formality in the language and how to match new documents to that conversation style, getting the message across quickly and without unnecessary fluff, while still being accessible to the interests of someone checking their email. The academic to to professional writing shift that Anson and Forberg discuss was an obvious hurdle. There is a difference even between writing for a hypothetical professional prompt in a class and writing for an actual audience of professional adults whom one could immediately assume hold a higher ability out of lack of confidence in a new environment. That writing, however, has been more doable than I feared before coming into this internship.

I thought I would have to converse more with authors and reviewers, but solicitation email attempts are a gamble for responses, and the issue itself does not require a lot of correspondence until final review with the authors for confirmation for the issue. But I have still done a large amount of writing for this internship. Distinct genres of writing for specific purposes and a communicative work environment helped me understand what was required of me and my work to help me be and feel successful in my contributions to the organization. 

 

Susan Katz, “A Newcomer Gains Power: An Analysis of the Role of Rhetorical Expertise”

Chris Anson and Lee Forsberg, “Moving Beyond the Academic Community: Transitional Stages in Professional Writing”

Genres in T/P Writing

In my internship, I have written different kinds of documents. The genres range according to the context for which I am writing. Solicitation emails to readers and potential reviewers have a specific audience and tone for the writing. Writing, or rewriting, a stylesheet for the articles for the journal has been a large portion of my internship. This genre involves a specific set upof the material presented, usually to a particular kind of person in the workplace that knows how to interact with a stylesheet, follow its guidelines, and use it to format other genres of writing. Bawarshi and Reiff explain that workplace genres are different than academic genres in how they interact with their community and the ability to have more contributing depth and the fact that workplace genres are so often for a wider audience. A stylesheet for formatting journal articles, for example, could be read by anyone in that field and the reader would understand the setup of the message and what they were expected to do with the information.

Understanding a workplace genre does more than reading a solicitor email. The members of the journal understand the email asking for input from interested reviewers beckons a response if they find themselves interested, but a social genre like that does not necessarily require a response. Workplace genres, however, require a response more often than not due to the author’s and the readers’ responsibilities to their jobs. A document that will stay in shared files is open for fellow employees to contribute to, edit, and use for their own projects. Something like this will help keep more documents made by several different people have a specific and orderly continuity to keep the organization creating documents and genres as one entity together. In any organization that needs guidelines for certain kinds of documents can use stylesheets to keep multiple authors writing genres in the same fashion to help maintain the level of understanding of the genre itself, how to interact with it, and what to do with the document when written or received. Stylesheets are a genre that can help form genre requirements. If there are stated rules about how a certain document should look, then that will help with recognition of them in daily working activity.

Carolyn Miller describes the hierarchical levels of meaning and interaction with a genre, and a situation of meaning-as-action with a genre in Genre as a Social Action. It is like when a genre is understood and recognized, then it is already acted upon in its first way, leading to the understood interactions with it that the genre invokes. 


Bawarshi, Anis and Reiff, Mary Jo. Genre Research in Workplace and Professional Context.

Miller, Carolyn. Genre as a Social Action.

Defining Technical and Professional Writing

Technical and professional writing is an important field of study to incorporate into a lot of different work contexts. The writer can help multiple departments of people, creating a specialist to work with different kinds of writings. A technical and professional writer could be beneficial for the CEA Forum by reviewing its website, editing workflow documents, and doing any other upkeep tasks for the website, its upcoming issue, and its public Facebook page. Technical writers add more insight than other possible candidates might, because they have knowledge of writing, editing, design, and other helpful elements, making them well-rounded candidates to help a company.

A degree in Technical and Professional Writing is similar to having multiple degrees in different fields, because technical writing has many elements to it. A technical writing employee can manage both internal and external documents. Allen explains in “The Case against Defining Technical Writing” that defining technical writing itself can be harmful to people’s understanding of it, because when it is done it always puts the field in a box too small, focusing too much on one aspect of a wide variety of talents a technical writer has. In the case of working with the College English Association Forum, a technical writer can assist in the creation of new issues of the journal, interaction with readers, and upkeep of the website itself. The College English Association and the Forum both use Facebook as a social interaction tool to interact with people, so the technical writer can be involved in the public relations aspects that would usually need an entire other position. The technical writer can perform the actions of multiple employees, saving a company money that they would have to spend on multiple hires.

A technical and professional graduate, and, in particular, one from a humanities department, would be nothing but beneficial to a modern company. Degrees in the humanities are often overlooked in technical and scientific fields, but these candidates Bachelors of Arts Degrees are the exact things giving them a linguistic leg up on the competition. A technical degree in a humanities department gives a graduate knowledge of both sides of the spectrum. They will know how to articulate eloquently, and also when to slash a document with a red pen, editing down to only what is needed. Well-written emails, wide-audience memos, and technical documents like instructions are all within this candidates reach. A technical writer has their handle on rhetoric, and also understands how to get to the point and describe procedures that a scientist can execute but maybe not articulate in a more universally understandable way.

 Jo Allen, “The Case against Defining Technical Writing”