Twitter is a fantastic media for sharing information. Several technical writers (including me; my twitter id is @gurpreetwrites) have started using this media to share news, tutorials, and sometimes their opinion about technical writing.

Twitter provides a way to categorize tweets by using a tag/term prefixed by # symbol, known as hashtags. The syntax of using a hashtag is # where could be the category name such as RoboHelp or Framemaker.

Twitter help provides several guidelines for using #tags:

The following are the common questions asked by an interview panel to a technical writer candidate:

1. Tell us about yourself? (This question is usually asked to verify what you have said in the CV and what you say at the interview are the same. In between, the interviewers will ask questions as if they are not fully convinced).

2. Why do you want to leave your exising job? Or, Why did you apply to this position?

3. What is SDLC/DDLC? What are the steps in DDLC? What is the difference between SDLC and DDLC?

There has been a lot of speculation about the importance of the technical writers in the industry. However no matter how good software is, without a well documented help support it would fail to hit the right chord amongst the clients.

The technical writers are the people who write the help manuals and other support documentation so that the users are able to use the software in an easy and efficient manner. The online help is one of the major support tools which the various companies provide with their software so that the users can easily work with it.

Hello ..

Here I am with a special subject that didn't post anybody so far.

My current employer is a US Immigration consultant (Core business). They offer L1 (Entry level) and H1B visas (Experienced) for employees.

But I wonder how an Indian technical writer can be successful in US Job market. Since language is one of the criteria concerned, any US company prefer an Indian technical writer for their Technical writer openings in US?.

This post is inspired by an earlier post titled "Diff bet Tech Writing and Content Writing" on TWIN. This is an effort to clear the air over both forms of writing.

Let us start by examining the word “content”. Merriam Webster defines Content as “the principal substance (as written matter, illustrations, or music) offered by a World Wide Web site.” Content is also defined as the material, including text and images that constitutes a publication or document.

As a technical writer by profession, with myriad experience in writing for the IT industry, I strongly believe that IT-based documentation is an upcoming domain where more and more people should venture. In this blog post, I intend to share my observations on where and how writers with a technical bent of mind can be a part of and contribute to the IT-outsourcing revolution in India.

Yes, writers have to sell their skills in IT-organizations - not to get the job, but after they land a job in an IT-organization. While most IT-organizations are realizing the need for hiring skilled writers to handle their technical and organizational documentation, they are not fully aware of the potential of the writers they hire.