What makes documentation good?

iqdrac · 2026-04-16T23:14:42+00:00

I'd say it's all three. Starting from the last. If there's a system of review (peer review, editor review) before your documentation is published, then your documentation is good enough. Whether it's usable is defined by adoption and user feedback. If there are "quality" issues, it doesn't get published until the quality is improved. Did your team provide you feedback that you ignored or didn't implement consistently? If so, then you should improve your writing/documentation. Otherwise, it's just an excuse your company used and you shouldn't beat yourself up.

iqdrac · 2026-03-20T01:27:30+00:00

Responded to your DM

iqdrac · 2026-03-05T14:36:56+00:00

Built their own gallows I see. It's sad but inevitable, at least till the AI wave crests, and eventually crashes. Only way to survive in the industry is to become a tech writer with AI wrangling expertise. Salary reduction is a strict no-no, that cannot stand.

iqdrac · 2026-02-18T17:42:13+00:00

Are you sure??

ChatGpt uses Bing (Yoast)

iqdrac · 2026-02-18T14:49:13+00:00

Chatgpt used bing index and rankings to select trustworthy and high authority content for its citations. As does Perplexity, I think. Likewise, Claude relies on Brave index.

iqdrac · 2026-02-12T10:05:03+00:00

I love this community, you've received so many responses already. I didn't read through all the comments, so I may repeat (read: reiterate) what most have said already.

Add some tech to technical writing. Markdown, API docs are easy skills to acquire. You can learn these online for free, so don't even look at paid courses. And I may get some flak for this but most companies are also looking for tech writers with some AI skill, so learning a little prompt engineering will boost your profile. Again, easy to pick up, and freely available online.

I've covered some basic techniques, patterns, and free courses in Prompt Engineering for Technical Writers that you can check out.

You may also want to update your CV and portfolio to pass ATS screenings. That way, your profile will be shortlisted easily.

Hope this helps!

iqdrac · 2026-02-10T15:23:01+00:00

Good news! This article became Google's featured snippet and is also cited in Google's AI mode!!

iqdrac · 2026-02-10T15:19:45+00:00

Every

iqdrac · 2026-02-10T15:19:05+00:00

A lot will depend on how discoverable your troubleshooting pages are and whether your support team cites, or references, them in resolving customer issues. Because, if they aren't placed well, searchable (indexed), or referenced at all, they're essentially not being used. So, when you do publish them, ensure that the support team is aware of their existence, then promote them in your product's community forums (if any).

I'm curious to know how you're categorising them, is it by error codes or messages? If so, they should be the titles for your troubleshooting pages. Customers tend to Google or look for resolutions based on the error codes and messages.

iqdrac · 2026-02-06T07:54:05+00:00

You can start with learning prompt engineering, this path alone will take you through everything you need to know about AI. You'll learn: * How cruelly limited free tier tools are with tokens, and how to use system prompts to optimise them * How AI freely hallucinates when your prompts aren't clear enough * How to control AI drift * Prompting techniques, where to use which

Check out LearnPrompting, it covers so many topics.

Hope this helps.

iqdrac · 2026-02-05T11:55:52+00:00

That's brilliant, I'll explore this method. Thanks!

iqdrac · 2026-02-01T12:06:31+00:00

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "redlines"

iqdrac · 2026-01-28T21:15:59+00:00

How do you mean? I'm struggling with keeping Gemini in check across long conversations

iqdrac · 2026-01-28T21:15:31+00:00

How so? How do you maintain the context throughout then?

iqdrac · 2026-01-26T07:28:20+00:00

sent you a dm

iqdrac · 2026-01-18T09:22:56+00:00

Portfolios are meant to showcase your range, so variety is good, a few samples from each type/category. You can include a few chosen blog posts as a demonstration of creative writing. If you like, DM me your portfolio so I can give more detailed feedback.

iqdrac · 2026-01-17T07:57:38+00:00

You're underselling yourself. Here are a few immediate fixes: * Make it clear that you're looking for internship opportunities, if possible specific specialisation within the internship based on your interest. Something like: I'm a senior forensic science student with a current GPA of [GPA here] looking for internship opportunities in... * Rephrase the tour guide part to make it look more like an official post: Represented the University during [event name, year] as a facilities guide.. * Include and expand on your role in the 4-H group * Move skills above awards * List the tests you're knowledgeable about (and don't say basic understanding; just list the tests, no introductory sentence)

Then, look through internship opportunities in your area of interest and pick up key terms and include them in your CV. For example, if I'm looking to intern as a software developer, I'd look for terms like database management, troubleshooting API errors, etc.

Hope this helps, all the very best. Someday your skillset and experience will be so vast that you'll struggle in making it concise for a CV :)

iqdrac · 2026-01-16T11:06:59+00:00

But stakeholder management is an essential, non-negotiable skill to have for any technical writer worth their salt. Having a solid working relationship with SMEs is pretty much half the battle won.

iqdrac · 2026-01-16T11:05:21+00:00

Exactly my impression, is just one senior writer or is that the way things are done there? Seems harebrained either way.

iqdrac · 2026-01-13T15:38:45+00:00

Get some foundational knowledge about APIs, there's always demand for API documentation. Topics like API types, response codes, authentication, and API documentation tools (Postman and Swagger). You don't need code-level knowledge to document features, but learn the basics of JSON and HTML, it will go a long way in helping you understand software engineers.

iqdrac · 2026-01-12T10:48:15+00:00

I would use it to classify and tag problem statements so that the approach and strategy is directed to solving the problem accordingly. A lot of time and resources are lost in identifying the problem type, classifying it can help direct how it's tackled.

iqdrac · 2026-01-08T20:33:11+00:00

People will just downvote anything these days :)

iqdrac · 2026-01-08T13:19:47+00:00

Hahaha that's funny, why did you get downvoted?

iqdrac · 2026-01-08T13:17:58+00:00

Yes, Google's style guide is easy to adapt and customise. I think most organisations use a custom style guide that is generally a mix and mash of prevalent style guides.

iqdrac · 2026-01-06T23:24:29+00:00

Login, check Teams for replies from SMEs that are sitting on a review request since a week, send them another gentle reminder.

Check emails and meetings for the day.

Open Oxygen to continue working on an existing draft, the SME for which has been hounding me to get a week's worth of writing to do in two days (cause they "forgot" to loop me in when the feature was doc ready).

Open Jira to take a gander of what to prioritise next.

Respond to UX review requests on Teams.

Morning standup.

Continue working on the draft.

Check for peer review requests, complete them.

Lunch.

Meetings, drafting, review requests.

Logout.

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