Technical Writing is largely a thankless job. Nobody really reads the document that you took six months to write but when they read, the results can sometimes be as devastating as the loss of your job because of all things, they had to look at that sentence on page 243, which contained an erroneous instruction, which in turn screwed their entire HRMS system. Okay, I’m exaggerating but you get the point: you do you’re unnoticed but you don’t and you’re dead. The money might be good but there’s precious little to motivate you to stick to technical writing as a lifelong career.

And so let me offer some sanctimonious advice: don’t take a technical writing job if you don’t enjoy it. If you’re planning a career in technical writing, make sure you do lots of research. If you think you can become a technical writer because you love writing and/or you write well, think again. Or if you do jump in recklessly–which is good in some cases–test the waters for a couple of years, but get out the moment you begin to realize that for a week or slightly longer, you’ve been spending your nights weeping softly into your pillow with the certainty that you’ve to wet your pillow with your tears the following night. And don’t look at your peers in the same company or industry with acid-filled eyes and envious wonderment at how they seem to enjoy it so thoroughly and earn so much (yes!).

What is technical writing

At the very basics, you’re on your way to technical writing superstardom if you possess and sustain these qualities:

• A sense of explorative curiosity that prompts you to investigate how something works. You are compelled to figure out how it works by dismantling and reassembling it if required. You might necessarily not know–or are not interested in–how to actually build it, and that’s perfectly fine.
• A passion to explain this to other people–orally…well, verbally, or in writing.

In a way, a technical writer is like a teacher who doesn’t lecture to a class but disseminates his/her lectures in the written form. For our purposes, we’ll restrict this “something” to technology/software.

It’s actually quite easy to proclaim your “passion for technology” as loudly as possible but look what happens when that translates into a job routine. You need to be constantly abreast of whatever technology you’re in and learn how it is actually applied. What this means is endless reading of complex technical documents. Remember, you’re writing to make others understand. If your own understanding is less than near-perfect, chances are you’ll be hit by that page 243 bomb.

It’s also equally easy to proclaim your “lifelong love affair with writing” and your “exquisite felicity with the written word” but here’s the thing: you primarily write to achieve technical and subject-matter accuracy and clarity. Your readers and/or reviewers’ primarily concern is whether you’ve achieved that and not so much for that wicked turn of phrase that you’ve introduced in the second para in the Overview of the Megaphone Connector for JDBC (Heading 1).

In other words, writing in this case, is subservient to technology/subject matter. The more firmly this is embedded in your consciousness, the less you will crib about or feel distraught at the lack of respect/recognition/appreciation for your amazing literary acrobatics. However, this is not to argue in favour of below-average writing skills. Make sure you have adequate command over your noun/number agreement, subject-object relationships, dangling modifiers, split infinitives, and the rest. Here’s a small trick that usually works: if you think your sentence doesn’t sound right, it probably isn’t. Read it aloud and check how it sounds. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can fix it.

If you are an aspiring technical writer and if all of this sounds sufficiently threatening/boring/intimidating, stop reading now, and if you’re a technical writer who already hates his/her job, look for a different career.

If you want to read, on, here’s the instant-coffee guide to becoming a successful technical writer:

• Be very unafraid of the monotonous drudgery of reading specifications, technical documents, talking to people, fiddling with the product, writing, editing, and writing again.
• Your writing skills can be improved. The Internet is your best friend and I don’t believe in spoonfeeding.
• Prepare. Look at what your competitor has done with a similar product. Read that product’s literature. Play with it if it’s available to you. See how you can apply that knowledge to your own work.
• Read a lot outside your work or domain. You’ll be surprised what all you’ll learn.
• Do your homework before approaching your SME or engineer. Ask questions that make them think. This is the only way to earn respect.
• Approach documentation from a problem-solving perspective. It helps to recall how you solved a complex quadratic equation back in school or college.
• Have a sense of humour. Accept criticism with grace. If your document is erroneous, it’s not because you are inherently evil.
• Observe, and learn how the really good technical writers approach a task or problem. It’s really okay to imitate them–that’s how you learned how to speak in the first place.
• Write. Write. Write. Practice is still the key.

What technical writing is not

• A shortcut for a development/QA or whatever other position, which demands a different skillset.
• A “hobby” or something you do because you’re bored at home.
• Merely documenting procedures is NOT technical writing. Print this line and paste it at your desk or home or car or whatever other place so that you’re constantly reminded of it.
• Process adherence might get you a beer and biryani dinner from your QA/SQM team but your reader will still look for accuracy.
• Ditto for fonts and styles and style guides and templates and XML and DITA and the rest. These are mere aids. A crutch is not a substitute for walking.
• Going through salary surveys is only bound to produce lots of bile.

Like any profession or career, you need to invest the required amount of hard work and seriousness that technical writing demands. Technical writing is thankless. Your only reward is that unexplainable, relaxing satisfaction that you derive after a hearty meal or a good bout between the sheets. It’s not for everyone.

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Keeping the Past Alive is Rewarding

Have you ever-even for just one second-paused to actually trace the origins of the words-any word-you use in your writing or speaking life? Try it. It’s fun, instructive, and interesting.

If the previous paragraph has convinced you to trace the origins of words, congratulate me because I now successfully qualify for a membership in the (U.S) Democratic Party. I’ve now become a Democrat. The connection between the previous paragraph and my becoming a Democrat will be clear in a moment. At the time of the American Revolution, the word Democrat had the pejorative meaning that we associate with the word Demagogue today-”a politician, leader or person who panders to emotions and/or prejudice”. In just over 100 years, the word Democrat had shifted so much in meaning that it is now the name of one of the only two American political parties. But look at what has happened to Democrat’s “parent” word, Demagogue. It now means the opposite of what it originally meant: a popular leader.

If the previous paragraph has confused you, re-read it.

Now what has happened in both cases is a gradual change in the original meaning of the word. Technically, the study of such changes in the meaning-or evolution -of words over time, across cultures and geographies is known as Semantics.

But there’s another, more fundamental aspect to changes in the meaning of words. It is the origin of words, the root cause, or the culprit. In our example, the word Demagogue originates from the Greek demagogos, which means leader (demos) of the people (agogos). And the study of word origins is technically known as Etymology.

As writers, it pays to develop a healthy curiosity about the etymology of the words we use everyday. The “benefits” might not translate into a pay hike or promotion but it’ll help us become better writers eventually. A brief list of words we use in routine technical writing parlance hopefully spurs thinking in this direction.

Today, we typically use the word manual in the context of a written document (User Manual). This word was imported into English from the French word manual which, in turn, has its roots in the Latin manualis, meaning “fitted to the hand.” The root of manualis itself is derived from the Greek manus, which means “hand; strength; power over; armed force; handwriting.” These meanings have an echo even today in usages such as “manual labour” and “the user has to populate the fields manually (bah!).” In 1431, manual was used to mean “a service (Church ritual) book used by a priest.” Around 1533, this restricted definition transformed itself to mean “a concise handbook of any sort.” And viola! We have today the User manual, the Manual of Arms (military), a manual of mathematical tables, and so on.

While we’re talking about user manuals, let’s briefly dwell upon navigation. In very simple terms, to navigate is to find our way around something. Interestingly, the verb navigate came later than the noun navigation. This word has seen little change in meaning ever since it was first used in 1533, derived from the Latin navigationem, which means “to sail; sail over; go by sea; steer a ship.” Navigationem is itself derived from Navis meaning “ship.” Although the original meaning is still in vogue, navigation is used today in the sense of “finding or helping find something-a place, an object, a direction, or information.”

From navigation to navigation aids (no, not the acronym). More specifically: Index and Glossary.

The lexicon seems to be quite fond of Index,notperhaps because the lexicon is itself an index of sorts but because Index yields a huge heap of meanings. For our purposes, it is simply a navigation aid, an alphabetical listing of words accompanied by page numbers. And it is 611 years old with roots in the Latin Indicis, meaning “forefinger; pointer; sign; list.” Does the word Index Finger sound familiar? However, it is also derived from Indicare, which, literally, means “point out.” The word Indicate has its roots here. Sometime in 1580, English incorporated Latin phrases such as Index Nominum and Index expurgatorius to roughly give Index its current meaning. Index Nominum literally means an “Index of Names” while Index expurgatorius has a slightly tyrannical connotation. It literally means “specification of passages to be deleted from works otherwise permitted.” Post 1720, the usage of Index branched off in a hundred directions to variously mean “compile an index (of terms/words), refractive index, economic index,” and so on. For our purposes, we’ll simply to stick to generating Indexes for the documents we produce.

Sadly, the history of Glossary isn’t as colourful. For the most part it retains its original meaning from the Greek derivative, glossarion, which means “obsolete or foreign word.” Around 1400, the Latin gl?ssarium made its appearance in English to mean, “a difficult word requiring explanation.” Glossary was originally used in the plural as glossaries, and alternatively defined as a “collection of textual glosses.” Interestingly, the word glosses is itself derived from the (Middle High) German, glosen meaning “glow, or shine.” This has resonance in the modern usage of the lip gloss, a beauty aid. But it remains that glossary, which today means “a list of terms in a special subject, field, or area of usage, with accompanying definitions” hasn’t deviated much from its original usage.

I should’ve started this piece with this word but I chose to keep the best for the last. While a lot of words are rooted in antiquity, some are deleted forever, some fall to disuse, some are revived from disuse, and others still, are rescued from extinction. Interface is a good example of the last phenomenon.

Interface is derived by combining the prefix, Inter, with Face. It is a fairly “modern” word in some sense because it was coined around 1880-1885. It originally meant “a surface forming a common boundary, as between bodies or regions.” This word lay dormant for several decades until in the 1960s, the computer industry suddenly resuscitated it with the same sense of usage. Within the computer industry, interface generally means “a point of interaction between a computer and another system-like a printer or similar device.” However, its usage became pervasive quite rapidly and pretty soon, acquired newer usages. For instance, it is acceptable to use interface in the sense of denoting interaction between departments in a company or between areas of study: “we need to improve the interface between the documentation team and the HR team.” However, using interface as a verb is generally frowned upon because you have better substitutes in interact, deal, work, or cooperate. Whatever the usage debate, it’s clear that the world of words owes immense thanks to the computing world for rescuing this word from complete oblivion.

You obviously don’t expect me to write an Etymology dictionary here-two such comprehensive (searchable) dictionaries already exist online if you are interested: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php and http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/etymology. If you are a steadfast devotee of the printed material like me, I highly recommend the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, or the “lite” Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology.

In the end, Etymology is tremendously rewarding not merely because it’s akin to a journey in history, or an enjoyable hobby but because its real value lies in the range of possibilities it offers us in the world of usage. It instructs us without preaching. It helps us to both break the lazy habit of using words frivolously–like cycling or swimming, you can never “forget” it once you’ve learnt it–and to become more effective writers.

If you are unconvinced still, check out the origins of bless, document, web, content, and search.

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Meanwhile, the BBC plans to do a documentary on Eliot’s private correspondence, which his widow Valerie has recently made public. A fascinating item therein is Eliot’s rejection of George Orwell’s classic, Animal Farm. This article calls it the “literary snub of the 20th century.” Eliot’s reasons for rejecting Animal Farm are equally fascinating.

When Orwell submitted his novel, an allegory on Stalin’s dictatorship, Eliot praised its “good writing” and “fundamental integrity”.

However, the book’s politics, at a time when Britain was allied with the Soviet Union against Hitler, were another matter.

“We have no conviction that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the current time,” wrote Eliot, adding that he thought its “view, which I take to be generally Trotskyite, is not convincing”.

Eliot wrote: “After all, your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm – in fact there couldn’t have been an Animal Farm at all without them: so that what was needed (someone might argue) was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs.”

The original rejection letter discloses that Eliot was more concerned about Britain’s friendly relations with the USSR in the time of war. Here’s the revealing portion:

On the other hand, we have no conviction…that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time. It is certainly the duty of any publishing firm, which pretends to other interests…than mere commerical prosperity, to publish books which go against the current of the moment. [Ed: Underlined]

Quite a giveaway, isn’t it? Thank God for Secker & Warburg, who ultimately published Animal Farm. We saw the truth fenced behind the real Animal Farm post Perestroika and Glasnost. Recall the Chief Pig who finally stands up and exercises his totalitarianism at the end of the novel?

Tags: Animal Farm, Eliot Rejected Animal Farm, English Novels, Fiction, George Orwell, Poets, T.S Eliot, Writers, Writing