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Technical skills that every writer should consider developing

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

See on Scoop.it – M-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications

As writers, we do more than just write. Whether we realize it or not. Many of us have a number of skills that relate to and go beyond writing. Regardless, there are a number of skills that every wr…

Danielle M. Villegas‘s insight:

I agree with all of these, although I admit that I’m not familiar with Markdown which is mentioned. I looked at the Wikipedia explanation of what it was, and it’s just an extension of basic HTML, so learning that makes sense, and I’m sure I could figure that out, too!

 

I find the significance of this important. During one of my past positions, there were those at the company where I was contracted that were full-time employees making the big bucks with the big titles, but were considered "web publishers." The irony of it was that not one of those individuals knew basic HTML needed to fix a simple table, let along any basic HTML formatting issues. A large part of my job was fixing tables because these people would merely copy and paste a table from Word into the CMS, and thought it would automatically format the same way. It wouldn’t.  And yet, these were WEB publishers!  Having the basic skills outlined in this article have actually taken me far in my career. It got me out of a life of doing customer service into the IT/tech comm world.

 

This is a must-read article!

–techcommgeekmom 

See on scottnesbitt.net

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Author:

Danielle M. Villegas is a technical communicator who currently employed at Cox Automotive, Inc., and freelances as her own technical communications consultancy, Dair Communications. She has worked at the International Refugee Committee, MetLife, Novo Nordisk, BASF North America, Merck, and Deloitte, with a background in content strategy, web content management, social media, project management, e-learning, and client services. Danielle is best known in the technical communications world for her blog, TechCommGeekMom.com, which has continued to flourish since it was launched during her graduate studies at NJIT in 2012. She has presented webinars and seminars for Adobe, the Society for Technical Communication (STC), the IEEE ProComm, TCUK (ISTC) and at Drexel University’s eLearning Conference. She has written articles for the STC Intercom, STC Notebook, the Content Rules blog, and The Content Wrangler as well. She was very active in the STC, as a former chapter president for the STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter, serving and chairing on several STC Board committees, and most recently was the STC Board Vice-President before the organization closed.. You can learn more about Danielle on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemvillegas, on Twitter @techcommgeekmom, or through her blog. All content is the owner's opinions, and does not reflect those of her employers past or present.

6 thoughts on “Technical skills that every writer should consider developing”

    1. Thanks, Craig. I had most of these, too, before I became a technical writer. I think having most of these helped me transition into a technical writer more easily than someone who didn’t have these skills.

      Reply

      1. Sorry, Marcia! I guess WordPress isn’t on the ball with this one. As I said above, I’m not familiar with Markdown, but I can see what it would be beneficial in some instances. Perhaps we should send notes to each other in Markdown for practice! LOL

        Reply

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