The dos and don’ts of writing samples

In no particular order, here are my recommendations for writing samples for those of you applying for a tech writing job. And yes, you need writing samples. Purpose The purpose of writing samples is to prove you have technical writing skills, not that you’ve held down a job. So when you pick or write samples, […]

Knowledgebase Ninjas podcast

Gowri Ramkumar at Knowledgebase Ninjas gave me the opportunity to participate in my first ever podcast and talk about my experience in technical writing and the direction Unity Documentation is going. Listen to the episode on their website.

An opinion about not having opinions

“We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and to not let it upset our state of mind—for things have no natural power to shape our judgments.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.52 I’m having my house renovated by a guy called Phil. Phil doesn’t want to turn the house into his vision of […]

The shower isn’t necessary

You know that moment in the shower when you suddenly get an excellent idea? That happens when your brain, working away quietly while you’re talking to yourself about what could possibly have compelled you to buy shower gel that smells like a food item, suddenly connects two dots. We say that things just clicked, or […]

Questions to ask about a candidate

Hiring’s hard, and the cost of getting it wrong can be fairly high. Sometimes new employees will do harm; often they just won’t do as much good as the candidates you didn’t hire. So here are three questions to ask about a candidate that may help you make the best hiring choice. Do they bring […]

Attention management for writers, part 4: Research notes

Research notes. A bombastic name for what is usually a bunch of half formed thoughts and snatches of typos. But you know what I mean. Why am I talking about research notes? Because, at least for me, messy notes – especially if they’re physically scattered among multiple sources (notebook, bits of paper, several different files) […]

Attention management for writers, part 3: The obligatory Slack and email post, or: guilt management for writers

Until now, we’ve focused on calming the chaos of our internal voice. Now it’s time we talked about that other attention killer: external voices. And, because I like to cheat, their influence on our internal voice. One thing you can do this week: Understand the difference between objective obligations and emotions. Nothing new here Honestly, […]