Technical Writing ToolBox

A Blog on Technical Writing

Technical Writer Salaries- How much do Technical Writers earn?

33 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on December 7, 2012

Without money (Photo credit: Toban Black)

In our society, money is the most important reason for which people work. Of course, other factors such as learning and gaining a sense of accomplishment after doing their work are also a major driving factor for many. However, most of us will never work for free (at-least not full-time) since we all need to pay the bills. Compensation is often a closely guarded secret and we seldom talk about this important subject.

When I came to Canada, I tried to research over the salaries in the Toronto region and was surprised to see a wide range of reported salaries for technical writers in Canada (but none for the Toronto region). The best and honest advice about technical writing salaries in my area came not from the Internet but from the network I made with fellow technical writers in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).

In this blog post I will try to share that knowledge for the benefit of others and will try to compare technical writer salaries in the U.S., Canada, and India.
Read more >>

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KeePass- The Best Open Source Password Manager

2 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on November 30, 2012

Program Name: KeePass

Use: Password manager

Cost: Free (Open Source)

Version: Classic and Professional (based on .NET architecture) Edition. Read comparison chart for more details.

Works on:

Classic Edition: Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 7 / 8 / Wine, each 32-bit and 64-bit.

Professional Edition: Windows 98 / 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 7 / 8, each 32-bit and 64-bit, Mono (Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, …)

Download Link: http://keepass.info/download.html

Enrolling for a Technical Writing Course?

4 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on October 10, 2012

A depiction of the world’s oldest continually operating university, the University of Bologna, Italy.- Image Credit, Wikipedia

Learning on the job is a great thing. But, is getting a higher education in Technical Writing after gaining some real-world experience a good choice as well?

I worked as a technical writer for eight years in New Delhi. Recently, I took a sabbatical to pursue a post-graduate certificate in technical communication from Seneca College, Toronto. The term sabbatical (from Latin ‘sabbaticus’, from Greek ‘sabbatikos’, from Hebrew shabbat, that is Sabbath, literally means “ceasing”) means – to take a break from work for an extended period of time, to pursue a goal.

Looking back at the golden triangle of cost, time, and scope, my decision to pursue higher education in technical writing after getting the real-world experience, was challenging and satisfying at the same time. I often felt that the learning outside the classroom is more important than studying in the classroom. For example, walking a kilometer to my class in -25 degrees, and under a heavy snowfall was as challenging as writing a technical autobiography for my technical writing class.

Speaking about Instructions

2 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on July 31, 2012

As they say, the unstructions were good 🙂

Humor

Visual Chemistry- Interaction of Text and Graphics

1 Comment Posted by Gurpreet Singh on July 16, 2012

Visual Chemistry

Technical communicators often use graphics with written procedures to communicate complex ideas.

Illustrated text often delivers better information that is more readily comprehensible to readers. However, if illustrations are merely used as a decorative item then they do not convey worthwhile information, and have a significant impact on readers. Readers are benefited when illustration and text work together to put forward a complex idea in a simple way.

Higher Education in Technical Communication- Is it worth it?

11 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on July 3, 2012

Technical Communicators are passionate about learning and often ponder on the question of higher education in the field of technical communication. The dream of gaining knowledge and credibility by pursuing higher education in technical writing often eludes technical writers at all levels of their career.

Gurpreet’s First Day @Seneca College

I worked as a technical writer for eight years in New Delhi and recently took a sabbatical to pursue a postgraduate certificate in technical communication from Seneca College, Toronto. The term sabbatical (from Latin ‘sabbaticus’, from Greek ‘sabbatikos’, from Hebrew shabbat, i.e., Sabbath, literally a “ceasing”) means to take a break from work for an extended period of time to pursue a goal. In modern times, several professionals have started taking a sabbatical to pursue higher education in their chosen disciplines.

My STC Presentation on Effective Presentation Skills

Leave a comment Posted by Gurpreet Singh on June 15, 2012

I conducted a skills development workshop for STC India (New Delhi) chapter two years ago. The workshop was warmly appreciated by the participants. The slide along with text transcript is available in this post.

Though the presentation shared in this post is two years old, the basic principles of presentation has not changed much in the past hundred years.

Technical Writing ToolBox Readership Survey

Leave a comment Posted by Gurpreet Singh on June 11, 2012

Gurpreet Singh fights the wind chill and -24 degrees winters in Toronto, Canada.

Dear Reader,

I’m curious to know about you. Really!

Humans, in general, are curious beings. This is clear by the fact that About me is one of the most regularly viewed page on my blog. You like to know about me. And I would love to know more about you!

This is a very unscientific survey to find out the demographics of my blog readers. This survey will only takes a minute or two to complete and will help me in writing content that interests you.

Please take a moment to fill this survey. Thanks in advance for your time.

Review, Whatis Readership Survey

7 causes of Inefficient Writing

8 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on June 7, 2012

Few weeks back I talked about three external factors that gives birth to inefficient documents. Writers either have no or very less control over these factors. However, this is not always the case. In fact, usually a writer makes documents inefficient if they fail to remove common writing mistakes from their work. Let’s look at seven factors that cause inefficient writing even when the content is technically accurate and the grammar is perfect:

Difference between Task, Concept, and Reference topics in DITA

9 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 31, 2012

Task, Concept, and Reference in DITA

Note: The content on this page is based on work done by Bernard Aschwanden of
http://www.publishingsmarter.com and is used with permission.

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specifies three basic topic types: Task, Concept, and Reference. However, people often get confused about these three types. Our cool (and knowledgeable) professor Bernard Aschwanden (he is an expert in DITA!) gave us an interesting exercise to differentiate between the three topic types in DITA.

How to write a Technical Autobiography?

10 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 29, 2012

Technical Autobiography of Nikola Tesla

When I joined Seneca College (Post Grad) Certificate in Technical Communication, the first (informal) writing assignment we received was to write a technical autobiography (worth 10%) in the TCN700 (Technical Writing I) class.

Wait, I hear you saying that the term ‘technical’ and ‘autobiography’ don’t go well together. You are in good company as most of us in the class at that moment thought on similar lines. It was only when our dear professor explained the concept of technical autobiography when we understood how important it is for a writing student.

10 Useful LinkedIn Groups for Technical Writers

5 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 27, 2012

LinkedIn started out in the living room of its co-founder Reid Hoffman in 2002 and now operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with 161 million members in over 200 countries and territories. It is available in seventeen languages: English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

LinkedIn receives a new member after every half second. If you do not exist on LinkedIn then you are surely missing job and consulting opportunities available in this professional network. If you are present on LinkedIn, I invite you to get connected with me at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/gurpreettw.

My talk on Technical Writing in George Brown College, Toronto

2 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 26, 2012

George Brown College (St. James campus at King Street) in Toronto

I was invited to give a talk on Technical Writing at George Brown College, Toronto few weeks ago. I talked about technical writing in general and how social media tools such as twitter, blogs, and LinkedIn can help them in getting a writing related job or consulting assignments.

It was a lovely experience for me as I love to talk about technical writing and social media. I hope that my talk inspired few of them to use social media tools to demonstrate and publicise their writing portfolios and they will soon receive their desired writing assignments through this new tool in their arsenal.

Top 3 Serial Killers of a Good Document

8 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 17, 2012

Don’t kill me- says your document!

Whether you are writing a user’s guide, online help, or an installation guide, you always strive to convey a meaningful message to your intended audience.

However, the message often gets diluted and becomes meaningless due to a number of reasons. Of course, a writer may not put enough efforts in making a message meaningful but most of the time several external factors contribute in killing the effectiveness of a document. Let’s look at the top three factors that kill a good document:

The 2012 MadCap Roadshow in Toronto

2 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 12, 2012

MadCap Software visits several cities in the US, Canada and Europe to provide an intensive, one-day technical writing seminar called Madcap Roadshow.

Thanks to the heavily discounted price (75% off), available only for technical communication students, I registered for the 2012 Madcap Roadshow in Toronto. This event will be held on 17th May at Toronto Hilton. I am pretty excited about this event as this would be my first Madcap Roadshow. Even without the student discount I might have attended it at the regular price ($99) due to the value it provides.

The only thing I hate about this event is that it is scheduled on Wednesday instead of a weekend. I have to miss two classes, TCN806-Web-Based Training and Multimedia and TCN800-Technical Writing II, to attend this event. However, our cool professor, Beth Agnew, records her sessions and upload her slides and audio recording of the entire lecture in Blackboard so I can still go through it later in the week.

Pomodairo: A Software Timer based on the Pomodoro Technique

6 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 10, 2012

Program Name: Pomodairo

Use: A software timer based on the Pomodoro Technique

Cost: Freeware

Size: 1.7 MB

Works on: Windows (XP/Vista/7), Linux and Mac (requires Adobe AIR)

Download Link: http://code.google.com/p/pomodairo

5 Free Online Tools for Distraction-Free Writing

7 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 8, 2012

Last week I talked about the importance of distraction free writing and suggested five free desktop tools for distraction free writing. However, some of us cannot install any software in a workplace computer due to the mighty-IT department restrictions or often work on shared computers. If you find yourself in either of these scenarios then you can use an online version of a distraction free software.

An online distraction free tool allows you to write without any distraction. There is no installation required and it can work with any modern browser. Let’s look at five such online distraction free tools:

Update (19 Feb 2014): A reader comment pointed out that QuiteWrite, LightWrite and Writer are inaccessible.

1. Koi-Writer

Online Access: http://www.koi-writer.com

Pomodoro Technique: A Recipe for Increasing your Writing Productivity

10 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 6, 2012

Pomodoro technique is a time management technique developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s and is quite effective in increasing work productivity. I’ve experimented with the Pomodoro technique and have received extremely positive results in increasing my own writing productivity.

What is the Pomodoro Technique?

Image Credit: Luca Mascaro/Flickr

“Pomodoros” is an Italian term which means tomato. Pomodoro technique uses a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute intervals called ‘Pomodoros’ separated by breaks.

The pomodoro technique is named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that can be used to track your writing sessions.

7 Useful Insights about How People Read Documentation

5 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on May 3, 2012

Reading is a primary form of communication for most people and they have different habits of reading. Not surprisingly, different people read product documentation in different ways. But how do they read and why should we care about their reading habits?

A writer writes with a purpose. This purpose gives shapes to their thoughts and allows them to convert their body-less thoughts to words. A strong correlation exists between a writer’s purpose and use of the document.

TextCrawler- Search and Replace Text in Multiple Files

5 Comments Posted by Gurpreet Singh on April 30, 2012

Program Name: TextCrawler

Use: Search and Replace Text across multiple files

Cost: Freeware

Works on: Windows (XP/Vista/7)

Detailed Review: Read here (opens in a new window)

Download Link: http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/content/textcrawler/tcdownload

I’ve often faced disappointment from various Help Authoring Tools when it comes to a simple text operations such as search and replace among multiple files. Most of the time I had to create a small macro that could do the job, or had to manually search and replace the text in html mode. Few years back I started using specialized text editors such as Crimson Editor and Notepad++ to do the job. They were good but limited in their functionality and took a lot of time to do the job.

I recently started using TextCrawler and have been pretty impressed with its ability to find and replace text among multiple files.