informativeMedia - Something for the business card

We all seem to need a label—something to fill up the space on our business card or our box in the corporate organisation chart. Ideally, we need a label that is self-explanatory. Otherwise, each time we meet new friends or colleagues, we have to describe what we do. If our explanation is too short, we sound insignificant. If our explanation is too long, we sound as though we are struggling to justify our existence.

So what do we call the people who work in the field of technical communication? "Technical communicator" would seem the logical answer, but it is not a popular choice. Instead, technical communicators work under a variety of job titles depending on their exact skills, how they wish to be perceived, or how their employers choose to perceive them.

If we look back to the era before the rise of computing, two main groups of technical communicators worked together to produce printed manuals. "Technical writers" wrote the text, and "technical illustrators" drew illustrations. Larger organisations also employed specialist "technical editors" to support technical writers. The text and pictures would usually be sent away to an external agency that prepared the content for printing. As part of this work, the agency might use the services of an "indexer" to compile indexes for manuals.

The DTP revolution

From an early stage in its history, computing brought change to the publishing industry. However, with the arrival of personal computers and the concept of desktop publishing (DTP), a revolution took place. Now technical communicators could take a greater control over their documentation. Although technical illustrators moved away from traditional drawing tools to adopt graphics software, most continued to concentrate on graphical work. Similarly, the work of technical editors remained largely unchanged. However, many technical writers began to use software to extend the scope of their work. They took control of designing page layouts and formatting their text. They used features for generating tables of content, cross-references and indexes automatically. Some also began to intrude into the domain of illustrators by producing simple graphics themselves. So many writers found themselves spending less time on writing and more time on other aspects of producing publications.

These days some technical communicators work as specialist technical editors, technical illustrators, or indexers. However, the majority work as technical writers or "technical authors".

What is the difference between a technical writer and a technical author? According to most dictionaries, an author is a writer who specifically produces books rather than other types of documents. Many people seem to consider technical writer and technical author as synonymous terms. However, there is sometimes an implicit difference. Someone who calls herself a technical writer probably sees herself as a wordsmith and promotes her mastery of language as her most valuable asset. On the other hand, someone who considers herself to be a technical author is probably trying to emphasise that she has a broader range of publications skills.