Technical Writing; What And How?
By: Awa-Oyom
Tags: Women In Tech, Software Development, Girls Who Code, Shecodeafrica, Technical Writing

She Code Africa: How can one become a technical writer? How can the skill be acquired?

Didicodes: A common assumption among many would-be writers is the thought of not being able to write because they were not born with the gift or skill of writing. Which raises the question: Are writers born or made?

I was curious to know what other people thought about this popular myth so I made a tweet about it. I was amazed at the fact that some people thought writers were born, others thought writers were made and another set of people thought writers were both born and made as well.

I personally believe that anybody, whether born with the skill or not, can learn how to become a great writer. I wasn’t born with the gift of writing, but I decided to be intentional about learning how to write and the rest is history.

The technical writers you see today had to develop or learn certain skills to become good at writing.

Here are 5 important skills needed to be a successful technical writer:

Writing: The first and most important skill every technical writer needs is writing. I know it might be confusing to see that writing is one of the skills required to be a technical writer because you probably think technical writing and writing are the same thing but they are not.

Writing is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation, and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form while Technical writing is the process of communicating or conveying one’s ideas, views, instructions, and suggestions more logically and technically.

Therefore, you must first understand how to write before going ahead to explain that topic or concept clearly and technically.

2. Audience Perception: Another important skill technical writers need is the ability to identify their target audience. To know who’s your target audience, ask yourself the following questions before you start writing:

Who are they?

What do they need?

Where will they be reading?

When will they be reading?

Why will they be reading?

How will they be reading?

When you get the answers to the aforementioned questions, it will help you tailor your writing to that audience which will in turn help you pass the message effectively.

3. Technical Skill: The goal of a technical writer is to enable readers to understand a highly complex process or concept clearly. For this to be achieved, technical writers need to be well familiarized with the topic they are about to write on.

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” ― Albert Einstein

The quote above by Albert Einstein echoes the need to understand the technicalities of something before explaining it to someone else.

4. Research: The importance of understanding how to carry research as a technical writer cannot be over emphasized because researching on the topic will equip you with a broad understanding of the subject. This broad understanding will ensure that your text is accurate and communicates the necessary data most efficiently. Simply put, Google the hell out of things.

5. A Unique Voice — We are all unique and that is why it is important to sit alone with your thoughts and let your mind flow freely as a writer instead of copying other authors’ content.

“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.” —Jack Kerouac, WD

This is extremely important because people learn in different ways & your content (voice) might be what someone out there is hoping to read before they finally understand that concept.