Fox Tales: What Is Your Technical
Communication Advice for Dad and Son?

By Susie Lynn Fox, 2007-2008 LSC President

As STC Lone Star Community (LSC) president, my e-mail inbox is full of a variety of interesting mail and occasional spam. As expected, some mail is from STC office personnel, and other messages are from LSC officers, committee managers, and members.

Sometimes I also hear from potential employers and people looking for work opportunities, so I direct them to the LSC Job Bank and to our upcoming LSC meetings. Other folks like to check in with someone before attending an LSC community meeting for the first time. So I encourage them to attend the Shy, Inactive, and New (SIN) special interest group (SIG) before the LSC community meeting.

In addition, I hear from folks who want advice about planning or transitioning to a technical communication career. For example, I recently received this thought-provoking inquiry from a concerned father and son (names have been changed to protect the advice-seekers):

Dad/Son Question: I have a son who is a junior at an area university and is majoring in English. He would like to be a tech writer when he graduates. He is currently getting his minor in business, but is wondering if there are other college minors that would complement a tech writing career.

Susie’s Advice: Let me ask the experts on my council what other complementary disciplines they recommend (besides business), and I'll get back with you. My initial guess is that your son should find a discipline he enjoys and minor in that. And if he already enjoys English, he might also enjoy a tech writing emphasis or journalism emphasis. These fields might prepare him better for technical writing.

Technical communication folks come from many disciplines and also work in many different industries. Some tech writers work in the medical field. Others work in telecom. Some work in a variety of hardware and software computer companies. Others write business proposals, write grants, or document policies and procedures. Some work with the government in various facets. There are careers in usability, academia, accessibility, information architecture, and so on.

Personally, I have a B.S. degree, with a journalism major and an art minor. I worked in journalism only a short time before jumping into tech writing. When I switched to tech writing, journalism was a great benefit to me, especially the journalism writing and editing classes. Tech writing is a skill that you can take to any industry. In my career so far, I've worked in religious publishing, oil field, computer software, and transportation industries.

I hope these ideas are helpful. I'll let you know what other ideas my experts have.

Mike’s Advice: Journalism or communications would be a good one. I'm partial to the print world having been a print journalist. Any of the tracks available will benefit a future tech writer. I especially recommend the writing and editing track or whatever they call it these days where the student works for the student newspaper or radio station. It forces you to get out and talk to people to gather information, return and write a story (for either print or broadcast), and chunk information (to some extent) so the story can be cut to fill the available space without losing important information. Many times you are working on deadline, which is good experience for the real world of shifting deadlines and rush jobs.

Heather’s Advice: Well, my minor was biology, but I wouldn't suggest that to anyone. I think graphic design or computer science would be a wonderful complement to a technical writing degree. What school does the son go to? He may not even have to have a minor, it wasn't required at the University of North Texas (UNT).

Jo’s Advice: Information science courses. Librarians know everything, right? Um ... no. Librarians know how to find information, extract said information, organize the information, and then distribute it. And we do what as tech writers?

Louellen’s Advice: I agree with Mike, but would add graphics design in there to get a foundation in Photoshop, Illustrator, and document layout software. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!

Kathryn’s Advice: Yeah, I would say any computer science or graphics would be great. Those are things I have always been lighter on than I wanted.

Paul’s Advice: I want to weigh in on the recommendation. I think Mike hit the nail on the head with the journalism emphasis. The ability to interview and pull out what you need from a reluctant subject matter expert (SME) is invaluable. If you take graphics classes, I think they should be more on what is good design rather than the software, because the software version used in class during junior year may be two or three revisions old by the time the student hits the real world. Plus, one frustration I know we have all experienced is some boss saying I like this or that, but not really understanding there are design principles that need to be followed, just like there are grammar rules. Learning the software is essential, but there are so many excellent resources over and above undergraduate classes, that are hands-on and immediate.

Chris’ Advice: What area of technical writing is the student interested in—software, medical, hardware, Sarbanes-Oxley? Industrial? Classes in those areas would be good. As Mike mentioned, writing for an English class or a journalism class are very different. I had an occasion to use the same material for an English class and a journalism class. I got an "A" in the journalism class and "D" in English.

Ann’s Advice: Computer science and/or any kind of science or engineering. They say there's going to be a big market in biotech so anything along that line would be great. I agree. This person definitely needs to take some journalism classes, too.

Rob’s Advice: Hey! I loved my biology degree! All the suggestions that everyone has made are wonderful. I agree that journalism classes would be beneficial. The writing skills he would get from these courses would kind of transcend the advances of any technology. However, if he is interested in document design, I would recommend that he take those graphics design courses. Having those graphics skills is certainly handy, particularly if he wants to be the type of technical communicator who works in a design-heavier industry. Plus, design is just plain fun!

Kristy’s Advice: I loved my biology major! (And, my psychology minor.) A minor in biology wouldn't be bad if he has any interest in medical writing. Any science/math-type degree would encourage paying attention to details. That's where most of the trouble with tech writing comes from, I think—lack of attention to relevant details. Let's also not forget that part of the reason for going to university is to learn how to think and problem-solve—not just to learn one specific skill.

Susie’s Conclusion: I’d like to thank the LSC experts for their amazing array of sage advice! Their responses reflect the broad bandwidth of talents, disciplines, interests, and experiences that constitute today’s technical communication world.

Your Advice: Now it’s your turn to:

Drop a letter to the editor (newsletter@stc-dfw.org) and share your advice to the newest generation of technical communication students.

Moms, Dads, daughters, and sons want to know what you think.