Recently I had the opportunity to chat with a few folks who are looking to get into technical communication. They asked how I got into the field and got my current job. One of the things I related was an extracurricular project I did in college, and it’s something I recommend to anyone trying to get into tech comm.

For this particular project, I taught myself the basics of FrameMaker 7.0 because while surveying tech comm job postings, I had seen that software listed as a desired skill. While I did that, I wrote a beginner’s guide to FrameMaker 7.0. I included some process information about planning a document that would help when later creating the document in FrameMaker.

I recommend this exercise to anyone trying to build a portfolio. If you’re earning a degree, you may not have a lot of documents to choose from, and if you’re not in a writing program at all, it may be even more difficult to build a portfolio. Approaching software or other products with the perspective of a beginner is a great way to get important experience. If you teach yourself some software, you approach it like a beginner, and so you can write a guide with yourself as the audience.

This gives you practice understanding your audience, and many times, you’ll be writing for beginners in this field anyway. Quick reference guides and short beginners’ guides are more friendly types of documentation than long manuals or help systems with thousands of topics (which sometimes we end up writing anyway if the situation calls for it). Doing these kinds of short documents gives you a way to get your feet wet in tech comm without making it a major project, and they show your skills in many key areas.

Related entries (auto-generated):

Preparing for the Technical Writing Profession, Part II

First Principles of Technical Writing

Release Scrums: An Important Resource for the Agile Technical Writer

My First Five Years as a Professional Communicator

Preparing for the Technical Writing Profession, Part I