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What distinguishes a good technical writer apart? Is it the knowledge of tools ,the language one uses or the experience. Well debatable but the one key factor we have observed that really makes a difference is the art of listening. It may sound very cliche' but this art is still one of the most important qualities and yet rare.

Listening to what your client wants is one of the most crucial aspect of a technical writer's job. At the end of a day sound communication happens only when it is "heard" and unless a writer does not hear enough and hear right he cannot write..

One of the most difficult decisions a woman has to take is to choose between her career and family.It is the dilema most women face especially on becoming mothers. On one hand you have a satisfying job for which you toiled day and night ,on the other you have your little one who in many ways is solely dependent on you. The decision gets tougher when the perks attached with the job are high. What do you in such a scenario- give up all that you worked for or sacrifice your child's rightful time? Well I would suggest balance both. The big question is how?

If you are an Engineer or a Computer Science graduate and looking for a career other than software development or testing, then try considering technical writing as a potential career option. Little is known about technical writing as a career and people miss out on good job opportunities.

But, as companies are realizing the need of technical documentation the demand for technical writers has also gone up with salaries at par with that of software developers and testers.

As in any other profession, to become an effective technical writer one needs to acquire certain type of skills. When technical writing came into being, it required mostly the writing skills as huge manuals or guides were a standard. Ever since the fields of technology and communications have grown, so also the skills required for these professions. Below mentioned are some of the skills required by a technical writer:

Technical writing is a field of professional writing on technical subjects. It is quite different from fiction or journalism. Fiction includes poetry, short stories, plays and novels. The goal of expressive writing is to express one's feelings through description and narration. However, if we want to read about rocket science or brain surgery, we need a technical writer to tell us exactly what they mean.

Developers need to work with third party code to develop complete applications. In order to integrate the applications with third party code programmers need well written API documentation. API stands for Application Programming Interface. API Documents are also required to work on platforms (and develop applications) such as Intuit, Sun, Google and Salesforce.com.

For organizations having global presence, to be successful in the foreign market one has to often depend on the documentation which is localized and properly rendered or translated. But localization and translation process can be tedious, costly and time consuming. Unable to keep up with the localization expenses, organizations often limit them or forgo them altogether.

Introduction
The objective of technical writing is to clearly convey some information to a select group of audience in a way that topic can straight away be understood.
Technical writing is a way of analyzing, generating and managing information about various products and technical procedures to be used in the generation of technical documentation.
Technical writers write and sometimes edit manuals, newsletters, user guides, online help files, reports etc. and many different types of text.

Technical writing comprises of writing and designing of user manuals, training manuals and developer's guide etc. for plenty of applications and products.

As you draft and edit, it is helpful to keep in mind the effective ways to present sentences and paragraphs.

When you revise your drafts, check the language and remove any area of possible confusion. If you have repeated any word, see whether you can change the sentence. The following passages will help you to be aware of any difficult construction of sentences, so that you can modify the same and ensure reader's comfort.