Here’s the scenario: You’re finishing up your latest HTML Help project…no more late nights or weekends…back to a “normal” 50-hour work week. That’s when the development team lead strolls into your ...

From the beginning in 1993, TECHWR-L has been a community of technical writers devoted to technical communications and technical writing discussions—our members share experiences, feedback, opinions ...

Recently I asked our current students to share a brief story about how Northern Arizona University coursework has been helpful in their current workplace writing endeavors. Our program serves students ...

A technical writing e-mail list is a fragile ecosystem for many reasons. For one thing (spoiler alert!), an e-mail list is not the most up-to-date social medium on the Internet. Modern folks often do ...

In the modern “fake news” era, “facts” are increasingly flexible rather than tangible, provable, stable things. People increasingly accept opinions and gut feelings as more valid than expert knowledge ...

As a creative, I struggle at times with many stereotypical issues other creatives face in the technical writing field. I work best at night, my brain is thinking of zillions of things at once, I ...

View our most recent TechWhirl Fast 5, featuring Dr.Erika Konrad from Northern Arizona University, and students Chris Farmer and Jessica Lewis, where we discuss their perspectives on creativity and ...

This chapter from Steve Hudson’s Work in Progress on Advance Word Usage covers topics such as when to use (and when not to use) master documents, as well as “The Ten Heretical Rules of Masters,” which ...

Nobody’s ever accused me of being a brilliant public speaker, but people generally seem to like and remember my presentations and generally rate me as a confident, welcoming, and effective speaker.

At some point in your technical writing career, you may find yourself in a position where you are responsible not only for your own output, but also the output of other writers under you. In other ...

I was home from college on break when my mother brought home a huge box. Our dog had gnawed the legs of our sofa until they looked like they were covered with tree bark, so inside the box was a small ...

Let me ask you a question about demographics. Can you name a minority — a statistically underrepresented group of people — by only knowing its size? To answer, let’s try a thought experiment with ...