Being a web developer, going into technical writing was one of my short-term goals and so you can imagine how happy I was to learn that I had been accepted into the technical writing bootcamp sponsored by Empower Her Commmunity in partnership with Non Tech in Tech, that I had applied to earlier. I mean what could be a better bonus point as a developer than being able to document what I build?😉
The first step in my technical writing journey was an onboarding call that was organized by the two communities and scheduled for 5 pm (WAT) on the 16th of July 2022 to introduce each track's participants to their facilitators and a brief rundown of what we were to expect throughout the Bootcamp.
Week One: Introduction to Technical Writing
We were properly introduced to technical writing by Ifeanyi Benny and Blessing Anyebe. These were some of the things we learned during this first week:
- Basics of technical writing
- Importance of technical writing
- Forms of technical writing
Skills required of a technical writer.
As part of our first-week assignment, we were required to create a Medium, Hashnode, Hackernoon, or Dev.to blog profiles and submit the links. Since I already had a Medium account, I created an account on Hashnode as well.
Week Two: Tools in Technical Writing
Timonwa Pelumi Akintokun, one of our facilitators taught us the various technical writing tools there are. Here is a rundown of the topics we covered in the second week of the Bootcamp:
Categories of Technical Writing Tools
- Research Tools
- Media/Visual Tools
- Note-taking Tools
- Editing Tools
- Authoring Tools
- Publishing Tools
- Documentation Tools
- Collaborative and Management Tools.
Markdowns
We were given access to these resources to practice markdown syntax.: Freecodecamp Markdown Tutorial, Markdown Tutorial site.
We were instructed to write an article on Google Docs on any topic or subject matter of our choice and send a link to it. The subject of my essay was "PROGRAMMING AS A CAREER PATH".
Week Three: The Writing Process
Every article or blog post begins with an outline. We learned about the procedure that writers use to compose drafts, then re-write, delete, evaluate, and update them before finally publishing them. We got to know:
- Writing process tips
- How to write
- Know your audience
- How to get topics to write on.
I picked up several helpful writing techniques that I used to update and enhance my project from the previous week. Writing will never be the same for me because I now have to consider how my audience will interpret what I write as well as how to engage and grab their attention.
Week Four: Assignment Reviews
Our facilitators opted to utilize this week to go over our assignments from the previous week, make any required corrections, and provide constructive criticisms and feedback. This was enlightening to me because I was able to increase my technical writing skills thanks to these reviews. These notable evaluations included:
- Information can be represented with photos, videos, GIFs, or infographics since, as we all know, "a picture is worth a thousand words."
- Avoiding plagiarism by using plagiarism checkers in our articles
- Effective use of tools like Grammarly, Quillbot, Hemminway Editor to check for spelling and grammatical errors
- Avoiding the use of excessive jargon and vague words in our writing.
At the end of these reviews, we were asked to publish on our blogging platform, the very first article we wrote. This was my mine.
Week Five: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization is very vital to technical writers and writers in general as it is a way of making one's site or article more visible to search engines. We were taught:
- The importance of SEO
- Types of SEO
- How to optimize in technical writing
- Meta tag optimization and canonicalization.
We were told to write and post a second piece on our blogs at the conclusion of the fifth week.
I was able to put a lot of the knowledge I gained over the previous five weeks to use while writing my second piece. I wrote this particular article about Blockchain Ambassadorial Roles and posted it on Medium. A Blockchain publication page on Medium took notice of it, and I was subsequently invited as a writer and contributor after receiving a private note from them.
My Blockchain article then got published on their blog page, yaaay 🎉. Even though it wasn't a paid role, I was happy about it because it indicated that at least my writing was improving.
Week Six: Documentation and Open Source
Light Segun, one of our facilitators shed more light on documentation and API documentations. Because they demand a thorough understanding of how APIs are used and how they operate, API documentations can be somewhat difficult to understand. Since software developers are directly involved in building and using APIs, it is easier for them to write the documentation. APIs can also be documented by technical writers, but doing so requires that they have some familiarity with the programming language in question, if not the API itself.
Open Source Contribution
I learned that technical writers may also contribute to open source projects and also learned about a good number of open source projects one can contribute to, debunking the common misconception that only developers can contribute to open source.
Our facilitators provided us with a wealth of writing resources, and this is a compilation of everything that happened during the Bootcamp.
Side Benefits from the Bootcamp
Additionally, during the sixth week, we learned a few other things, including:
- How to create a resume, cover letter, and a technical writing portfolio
- Soft skills to have as a technical writer
- How to be a freelance technical writer and where to source for freelance tech writing roles
- Technical writing communities to join to aid our tech writing journey like Write The Docs Ng.
Final Note:
Before the start of this Bootcamp, I had always thought that my writing wasn't good, but as the Bootcamp progressed, I was able to greatly enhance my writing and editing skills and I developed a habit of consistently reading and writing. To further hone my writing abilities, I even posted a couple more articles on both my Medium and Hashnode accounts.
Opportunities like this don't come around very frequently, so I'm thrilled to have been a part of this Bootcamp. Without the collaboration of these two communities to help women transition into non-technical technical roles, this would not have been possible. The facilitators were extremely important in all of these. I was given the wonderful opportunity to learn from and be mentored by devoted, kind, and knowledgeable facilitators. I'm looking forward to further improving my writing abilities by writing more blog posts and articles.