What technical writing doesn’t include?

I should say that many of these potential tasks depend on the team’s size. As possibly the only person on a team or project with the ability or desire to communicate and explain, you may find yourself called to undertake tasks you never anticipated. You might be OK with doing them all, and that’s OK. But maybe you’re not OK or don’t have the time and the inclination, and that’s also OK. What I present in this section attempts to get to the core of what technical writing work should be, so you shouldn’t feel you have to do any of the other work.

Technical writing isn’t copywriting

Many people you speak to hear “writing” and think you want to edit their website copy or other assorted text tweaks. Depending on the topic and the project size, you may still be interested, and the best-suited for the task, but technical writing is generally specialized and requires niche technical knowledge. In short, you’re probably not the most suited and are too expensive for the job.

Technical writing isn’t interface copy

I have worked on some teams where technical writers handle the text that appears on buttons and in Command Line Interface (CLI) commands, and for a product aimed at developers, it can make sense. However, there are probably people more suited to the task whom you can instead advise.

Technical writing isn’t blogging

I need to be careful here. I blog a lot because I like blogging, and there is also great demand from marketing departments at technical companies for people who understand the technology to help them spread that word to other technically minded people. Marketing teams will be very happy if you do want to blog, but it doesn’t suit everyone, and you don’t have to feel obligated.

Technical writing isn’t tech journalism

This is another one where I don’t help as I also run my own podcast, reporting on events and interviewing people in the tech industry. A technical background has helped me a lot with some subjects, and learning to write more clearly has also helped me produce clearer content. However, most tech journalists I encounter aren’t that technical, and I have frequently taken issue with the level of misunderstanding in some tech reporting and feel that we should consider much of what we call “tech journalism” to be more “consumer journalism”. I doubt many of you reading this book will be asked to tackle any tech journalism, but surprisingly, it’s what many think of when you mention “technical writing”.

Technical writing isn’t marketing copy

Technical writers are often shuffled back and forth within the corporate structure and occasionally become part of marketing teams. However, technical writing should only cover facts (more on that in Chapter 4, Page Structure and How It Aids Reading), and you shouldn’t ever feel compelled to write press releases or any other pure marketing copy.