Professional writers who take complicated technical issues and transform them into a version that is more understandable for the common person are known as technical writers. There are many different technical writer jobs that exist, each of which involves the creation and maintenance of technical documents that cover many different fields of technology. The average job will mainly consist of help instructions and computer program documentation within the industry of information technology, but many more branches exist in many other fields.
The job title of “technical writer” actually covers a huge range of different jobs, fields and duties. One of the many technical writer jobs can be in agriculture, medicine, pharmaceuticals, computers, Internet technology, manufacturing and much more. For the most part, a technical writer will help create documentation that covers a very specific topic within his or her field.
One of the most common technical writer jobs is that of a medical, or science, writer. These types of technical writers work with scientists and doctors to create documents that are meant to explain or clarify research results, medical procedures and more. It is not necessary for one to be a doctor or scientist in order to become a medical writer, and opportunities for such technical writers is growing as the amount of medical and scientific information also grows.
Health writers create articles and documentation that make current health and fitness trends easy to understand for the average person. This is another of the most common technical writer jobs because of the wide range of people that like to write or blog about health trends. The more experienced technical health writer will usually work for a large corporation and make much more money than their freelancing counterpart.
A policy and procedure writer is a technical writer who can best be described by his or her title – one who writes and edits policies and procedures for different aspects of business. There are, however, different job duties associated with these positions. A few of these technical writers are actually responsible for the creation and documentation of company policies, but more often the job requires the writer to translate policies and procedures in a way that will most easily be understood by company employees.
There are many variations of technical writer jobs, which can involve more than simply writing. Notable titles of such jobs include information designers, legal writers, communications specialists, proposal writers, web editors, technical editors, and many more variations. Often these jobs require the writer to work closely with other writers as well as technical experts, and most of the time working is actually taking notes, researching, interviewing, editing and working with subjects hands-on rather than just writing.
