Technical Writing - Job Satisfaction

Someone sent me the following mail (excerpts):

I am new to technical writing. I have recently joined a CMM level 5 company as technical writer. I am also MBA (finance) with 10 yrs experience. I was a content writer before switching over to technical writing recently. But i am not exposed to various things in technical writing here. I have learnt Technical writing formally. I can use RoboHelp, framemaker, snag IT. But in this firm i am using only MS publisher & Snag IT and doing user manuals, online help & documentation. My job satisfaction is low here. so in order to be exposed to other things like release notes, installation guides, SRS, etc. i have to work in a software firm employing these tools to gain experience. If i pursue a online instructional designing course from an institution like vibrant wavelength will it add more value and provide job opportunities.

To which I replied (excerpts):

Not all companies do all kinds of documentation. User manuals and on-line help are the most common types of documentation. Release Notes are, essentially, "notes" and are, therefore, much limited in scope when compared to user manual and on-line help. Installation guides are another kind of user manual - the difference is that this tells someone how to "install" rather than how to "use" and is, therefore, at a slightly higher technical level. Someone who has written user manuals will not find it difficult to write installation guides, provided the domain knowledge is good. SRS are usually not written by technical writers - the project managers of the development team write them. If you are a TW at heart, it does not matter what you write but how you write.

Tools are important, but they are not the end. Tools keep changing. What is important is the ability to take a look at a tool and quickly figure out how to use it. Robohelp, for example, is similar (not exactly same, but similar) to HTML Help Workshop. So, if someone has used one tool, the other tool should not pose any problem. It is important to have "conceptual" understanding of a tool (about what it can do) rather than a "mechanic" understanding (how to do task X).

Instructional design is different from technical writing. It has its own cycle, terminology and methods. It is another branch of technical writing.

Online courses may not really help. Having a "certificate" in one's résumé does not guarantee a better job unless the person can prove, on the spot, that the person really knows the subject.

Analyse yourself - your interests and your strong points, and work towards strenghtening them.

Just my two cents worth.

FrameMaker - Cross References

Problem: My FrameMaker book has several files with cross-references across the files. When I update the book, I get list of entries saying "unresolved cross referece ....blah blah" in my book error log. When I click the links in the error log, they lead me inside the source file to nowhere. The unresolved links are seemingly empty! When I do a "Find" for unresolved cross references, I get a null result. So, where are the broken links?

Hmm (that's me thinking).

Action: I check ALL the cross references in all the files. They are correct. I update the book. I get the same error list in the book log.

Hmm (that's me filling up the nescafe-powder-containing-coffee-cup with hot water)

Thoughts: We imported the text from Word. The Word files were in rich text format.

Action: I do a "Find" again, but this time I look for ANY cross reference. After a couple of "Nexts", the box to the right of the "Find" field shows an entry: "xyz.htm". What? I dont have no html files in my document. So, I go to the location. The cursor leads to a place that doesn't seem to haev anything. I press Delete a couple of times (okay, I press Delete till such time as the space between two words disappeared, and I re-entered the space). I repeat the Find process and do the Delete stuff for all such seemingly empty references that show an htm reference. I save the files, update the book. It works.

Lesson learnt: I hate Word. It messes up life even if life does not have a numbered list or numbered section-broken pages.

इलाहाबाद की झाँकी - १

इलाहाबाद का एक मुहल्ला है जिसका नाम है लोकनाथ । भोलेशंकर लोकनाथ का एक मन्दिर यहाँ है, जिससे इसका यह नाम पड़ा । यह लोकनाथ क्या है ? शहर का पुराना इलाक़ा है, जी.टी.रोड से लगा हुआ, न जाने कब किस सदी से यहाँ बाज़ार है जो आज भी उतना ही जीता-जागता है जितना कि शायद बादशाह अकबर के ज़माने में रहा होगा ।

तो, आज हम लोकनाथ की चर्चा क्यों छेड़े बैठे हैं ? असल में बात यह है कि आज दफ़तर में किसी का जन्मदिन था, वह मोतीचूर के लड्डू लेकर आया था सबको खिलाने । वैसे तो हमें मिठाईयों में ज़्यादा दिलचस्पी नहीं पर मोतीचूर के लड्डू से भला कौन इन्कार कर सकता है ? सो हमने भी एक लड्डू ले लिया ।

पर लेकर अच्छा नहीं किया । अब जिसने इलाहाबाद के लोकनाथ का बाक़ायदा सैर किया हो, उसे यहाँ-वहाँ की मिठाईयाँ कब भाने लगीं भला ? अरे, लोकनाथ का तो नाम सुनते ही लोगों के मुँह में पानी आने लगता है । चलिये, हम आपको लोकनाथ कि सैर करा दें ।

शुरु करते हैं लोकनाथ चौराहे से । गर्मियों के दिन यहाँ कुल्फ़ी बिकता है । हाथ से बना, नमक वाले बर्फ़ में जमा, मलाईदार कुल्फ़ी । बगल के दुकानों में लस्सी, रबड़ी, मलाई । नहीं तो फिर गरमागरम जलेबी के साथ मलाइदार दही । सामने हरी के दुकान से नमकीन ले लें; मठरी, सोठ, दालमोठ, समोसा, और शाम के चार बजे मिलता है आलू मसालेदार । फिर है चाट की दुकान, मिठाईयों का दुकान और फिर बैठता है एक पानवाला । बीच में एक दुकान में भांग की गोलियाँ भी मिलती हैं; आखिर बाबा भोलेनाथ के शान की बात है ।

और हम भी क्या बेवकूफ़ जो ऐसी जगह छोड़कर दूर बंगलूर में बैठे हुए हैं ।

Experimenting with Indic fonts

This blog post is supposed to display correctly in browsers with IE 7 and above.

Here goes the Bengali text:

আনন্দ ধারা বহিছে ভুবনে

দিন রজনী কত অমৃতরস উতলি যায় অনন্ত
গগনে

পান করে রবি শশী অঞ্জলি ভরিয়া

সদা দীপ্ত রহে অক্ষয় জ্য়োতি

নিত্য় পূর্ণ ধরা জীবনে কিরণে

বসিয়া আছ কেন আপনমনে

স্বার্থনিমগ্ন কী কারণে

চারি দিকে দেখো চাহি হৃদয় প্রসারি

ক্ষুদ্র দু:খ সব তুচ্ছ মানি

প্রেম ভরিয়া লহ শুন্য় জীবনে

And here is the Hindi text:

यह कदंब का पेड़ अगर माँ होता यमुना
तीरे

मैं भी उस पर बैठ कन्हैया बनता धीरे-धीरे

ले देतीं यदि मुझे तुम बांसुरी दो
पैसे वाली

किसी तरह नीची हो जाती यह कदंब की
डाली

तुम्हें नहीं कुछ कहता पर मैं चुपके-चुपके
आता

उस नीची डाली से अम्मा ऊँचे पर चढ़
जाता

वहीं बैठ फिर बड़े मज़े से मैं बांसुरी
बजाता

अम्मा-अम्मा कह वंशी के स्वर में
तुम्हें बुलाता

बहुत बुलाने पर भी माँ मैं जब न उतर
कर आता

माँ तब माँ हृदय तुम्हारा बहुत विकल
हो जाता

तुम आँचल फैला कर अम्मा वहीं पेड़
के नीचे

ईश्‍वर से कुछ विनती करतीं बैठी
आँखें मीचे

तुम्हें ध्यान में लगी देख मैं धीरे-धीरे
आता

और तुम्हारी फैले आँचल के नीचे छिप
जाता

तुम घबराकर आँख खोलतीं पर माँ खुश
हो जाती

जब अपने मुन्ना राजा को अपने गोदी
पातीं

इसी तरह कुछ खेला करते हुम-तुम धीरे-धीरे

यह कदंब का पेड़ अगर माँ होता यमुना
तीरे

Let's see if the stuff displays correctly...I'd apreciate feedback from you folks about the display (correct, total junk, misplaced matras...).

And for any of you who gets new posts in your inbox (you'll notice that I've now removed that option from my blog), I am sorry for the multiple posts that may have landed in your inbox because of the multiple edits that I did to this post.

Thanking God for small mercies

• that autos don't have a reverse gear


• that they haven't put a traffic light atop the Hebbal flyover


• that buses are not allowed on that stretch of Brigade Road


• that not all who think they know MS Word also think that they are Technical Writers


• that khadi kurtas are still available for less than a hundred rupees

The Last Bungalow

--------------------------------------------------------------
Book Review: The Last Bungalow - Writings on Allahabad, edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (Penguin, Rs.395)
--------------------------------------------------------------
This book is a collection of writings on Allahabad. It has the impressions of people who stopped over at Allahabad while on their journeys elsewhere (Hsiuan Tsang, Mirza Ghalib and Mark Twain), those who came to Allahabad for a brief stay, either because of a job (Fanny Parkes, A. N. Jha) or an education (Saeed Jaffrey), or those who were born at Allahabad (J. L. Nehru) or whose parents or grandparents were (Kate Chisholm). The writings bear the stamp of the author - so we have a very British account of the pre-mutiny Allahabad in Fanny Parkes writing where several pages describe how they made ice in winters, and opened the ice-packs in summer (...are usually opened on the 1st of May, but it is better to open them on the 1st of April. We had ice this year until the 20th of August...). Mirza Ghalib, travelling through the town at around the same time, found the place to be utterly dreary and devoid of life (He liked Banaras better). There is a piece by a British lady holed up in the Allahabad fort with her family during the Mutiny; she believes that her retinue of Indian servants have ...been very wicked....

The piece by J. L. Nehru is a recount of his experiences with Theosophy, and has nothing at all to do with Allahabad. Ditto for the piece of A.N. Jha, that has excerpts from his diary recouting meetings with Sarojini Naidu - again, it does not say anything about Allahabad. The translation of Suryakant Tripathi Nirala's poem "wah todti paththar" (translated by the editor) made me wonder why it was at all included in the compilation - is it only because the first line calls Allahabad "Allahabad" the first time in Hindi literature? (An observation that, in itself, is doubtful).

All in all, a book that begins as a perfectly delightful one, progresses to being boring (Pankaj Mishra, A K Mehrotra) and ends on an okay note (P K Mehrotra). The best pieces that comment on the contemporary times are written by those of whom not many have heard about - Rajeshwar Dayal (who comments on the otherwise misrepresented student community during the years just before 1947), Kate Chisholm (who describes the birth and death of the ...best bakery in town...), David Lelyveld (who makes a startling assertion about an inscription on the gates of Swaraj Bhawan) and Gyanranjan (whose idea of a guided tour of the city is to point out the haunts and houses of the doyens of Hindi literature).

A good book but could have definitely been compiled better. On a scale of 1 to 5? Hmm, 3.5.

Slow and Easy

Crossposting my comment on Kumar's blog...
Salboni used to be, and still is, a sleepy village in West Midnapur, West Bengal. When the new note press there started its first production in 1996, the railway station did not have a proper platform, the village did not have public transport (public transport in a village??), and the local shop did not know what kissan jam and maggi noodles were. The Note Press was a government initiative, which meant that the factory could not provide jobs to locals (all that suff about "competitive all-India recruitment" and "reservation on jobs").
It is 2007 today, and the change in Salboni is visible. For starters, there's an eating place where non-locals can grab a bite. And there's a ramshackle bus, ready to fall apart, that ferries people to and from the railway station. The road to the station is asphalted. And the villagers need not travel to Kharagpur, a bone-rattling 1-hour ride on a bus, to ply their trade - for the Note Press employees and their families presented a captive market. Besides, two express trains now stop at the Salboni station, a place that served only passengers till recently.
So, why was Salboni not another Nandigram? As I see it, three reasons:
(1) The government already had the land. It was a barren, ununsed air-strip of the WW II times, surrounded by a forest of Sal trees that were not onwed privately and could be cut down.
(2) The pace of development was not scorching. It took almost 10 years before a private player (Vishakha cement) could be pursuaded to open a cement factory in the village. The slow pace let the villagers adjust to, and appreciate, change.
(3) The farmers still farm on their lands. No one took it away.
...Just my two cents' worth.