Hiring 2 tech writers in Copenhagen

We are looking for 2 tech writers for financial software in Copenhagen, Denmark: 1 Senior Technical Writer with at least 5 years experience 1 Technical Writer, graduates welcome SimCorp is a leading provider of investment management software and service solutions. For details, see the company job page or ask me via twitter @techwriterkai or via [...]

Join me for “Getting ahead as a lone writer” at tekom

If you’re attending the tekom conference in Wiesbaden, consider joining me for my updated presentation “Getting ahead as a lone writer” on October 19 at 8:45 a.m. in room 12C as part of tekom’s international, English-speaking tcworld conference. My presentation will be an updated version of the session I did at TCUK 10. I will [...]

Join us for pattern recognition at TCUK

Dr. Chris Atherton and I will be premiering our exciting interdisciplinary presentation on “Pattern recognition for technical communicators” at the TCUK conference near Oxford next week. You can find the session abstract on the conference web site or review my previous post. Join us for a fun whirlwind tour through human perception and find out [...]

When topics don’t quite work

If a topic in your documentation gives you trouble, seems homeless or doesn’t quite “work”, it’s probably because it is mixing topic types. The company I work for has started to roll out topic-based authoring over a year ago. We’ve seen several benefits already: Topics are easier to find and follow for users and more [...]

A day in a tech writer’s life

In a typical day of my working life, writing takes a backseat to collaboration and communications. – This article first appeared as an “A day in the life” column in ISTC’s Communicator in the Spring 2011 issue, page 58. I really enjoy the “A day in the life” pieces, because they’re like chatting with fellow tech [...]

2011 megatrend in technical communications

I think this year’s megatrend for technical communicators and their managers, especially employed ones, is to position tech comm as a business in its own right – or to be redundant in the long run. This is my conclusion after thinking about three astute predictions that Sarah O’Keefe recently blogged about. – I know: I’m [...]

Index this!

An index is an important navigation device in documentation, especially in print. It helps users to quickly find key terms, concepts, functions, and instructions. In this post, I share my best advice about building an index. And I ask for your help and opinion on a couple of details. To make your index entries helpful, [...]

Top strategies to embrace cost metrics

Moving to a structured writing environment can change the metrics of documentation. That’s one of the lessons I learned in a great webinar by Scriptorium‘s Sarah O’Keefe about  “Managing in an XML environment”. If you’ve missed it, check out the 45-minute recording/slideshow on their website. You’ll find it very interesting, if you’re wondering what it [...]

Ragged-right or justified alignment?

Which alignment on the printed page is better: Ragged-right or justified? It seems that ragged-right is preferable, at least in some circumstances. Today, I’m re-posting a piece that I first published on April 23, 2009, on the now defunct Content Wrangler site and then moved it to this blog as legacy material that was buried [...]

Editing for tech writers

Tech writers don’t just write, we frequently also edit what our peers have written. As Tom Johnson recently tweeted: Can’t decide if the technical editor role is dead or if technical writers have evolved into this role as their new default.  8:40 AM Apr 23rd I wouldn’t call it a “default role” for us writers, [...]