: Re: Does a technical writer need a technical background? Does a technical writer need a technical background?

@Bethany377

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I have a technical background myself, but I've worked with some first-rate tech writers who wandered into the field from the humanities or social sciences. In my opinion, the best technical writing teams have a mixture of techies (to provide technical insight) and non-techies (to ask useful "stupid" questions).

That said, good technical writing is based on a solid curiosity about the subject matter. Your goal should be to make the technology accessible to your readers. Tech writers who are incurious about or intimidated by technology (and there are a lot of them!) write about things they barely understand in a superficial, misleading manner that drives readers crazy.

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