Defining T/P Writing

A Technical Writer is someone who has the ability to fulfill the many needs of a company through a single person entity. David Dobrin says it best that, “technical writing is writing about a subject in the pure sciences or the applied science in which the writer informs the reader through an objective presentation of facts.” Technical writers are objective in their writing styles and use a more concrete structured way of presenting the material.  Some materials that technical writers are known for writing, formatting and editing are manuals, warning labels/signs, and handouts/pamphlets.

During my internship with The Writers’ Slate I will be asked to contribute in the editing and administrative side of the writing process. Some of the administrative items I am helping with is the selection of the submission that will be published in the upcoming issues. I also am the one that emails the writers that we will be publishing. The emails are a congratulations letter but some of them are also ideas for revisions that might bring their writing to the next level. My technical writing class experience helps me with some of this administrative work because we learn how to properly format emails, cover letters, and memos. It helps to give a professional consistency to any correspondence between the writers and the Writers’ Slate staff.

One benefit to having a full time technical writer on The Writers’ Slate staff would be the consistency that the individual could bring to the job. Right now for every three issues there is a new person working on the formatting and editing. There are templets that are supposed to be followed and an overall concept to stick with, however by having one person do the job there would be no consistency errors unless there was a purposeful change made. Another benefit of hiring someone full time would help with the communication of writers to editors. There are times when a writer from a previous issue finds an error and would like it fixed. This is not something difficult to do but it can be time consuming if the person fixing the error is not the original editor of the issue itself. By having a full time technical writer they would be able to recognize the person with the error and hopefully locate it quickly to change.

Some companies shy away from hiring someone with a humanities degree, however they should look into the benefits if they did hire someone with a humanities degree. An individual in this degree background would have the understanding of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure that might be a huge benefit towards their job. Another skill they have is the ability to research and review materials given to them while working on an assignment. These difference abilities set a person with a technical writing degree apart from all the rest.  

David Dobrin, “What’s Technical about Technical Writing?”