If you answered yes to any of the above questions, a technical writing career may be in your future. Technical writers explain things. They translate complex information and ideas into content that can be easily understood by a particular audience from the general public to technically trained people. Technical writers create environmental impact statements, web sites, magazine articles, proposals, instructions for taking medicine, training manuals for pilots, repair manuals for blood analyzers, instructions for using VCRs, online help for computer software, assembly instructions, newsletters, on-screen instructions for using your bank's ATM machine, specifications, user's guides for telephone answering machines, instructions for making microwaved popcorn, computer manuals, and many other types of documentation.
Technical writers work in every industry, from automobiles to computers to finance to health care.
At one time, technical writers were primarily wordsmiths. Austin Brown began his technical writing career in Alaska in 1961, before the computer and the photocopier were commonplace. Writers used a pencil or an ink pen and wrote words on paper, he recalls. The paper was handed to a typist who used a typewriter to type the words. Documents were printed using a method called offset lithography.