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Technical Writing for Translators

Degrees

Are degrees necessary?⎹ Technical communication at university

Are degrees necessary?

Degrees are not essential, but they are always a plus. Job offers will often list them as “nice-to-have”; Common majors for technical writers include:

  • English Studies (or other language-related)
  • Computer Science (or other IT- and technology-related)

Technical Writing or Technical Communication are also common in countries where such programs are taught at BA or MA level (as of 2022 – not in Poland).

As a translator, you likely studied translation, linguistics, or philology. All of these are relevant, although technical education would likely give you more advantage1. If you don’t have any degrees, just ignore this part of the guide. Focus on courses and certificates instead. Taking a full-scale university course now would be overkill. You should be able to retrain within a year.

Technical communication at university

In Poland, you can now study Technical Communication at Vistula University in Warsaw, as a part-time postgraduate course.

The course takes two semesters (one academic year). The classes are held online every other weekend, from 09:00 do 17:00, via MS Teams. To meet the entry requirements, you must have:

  • A bachelor’s diploma (or higher),
  • Good working knowledge of English (B2 or higher)

Students are evaluated based on class participation and completed assignments. The second semester ends with students’ defences of the final projects.

The course is organized in partnership with Atlassian, MadCap, ITCQF, and Techwriter.pl, among others. All of the instructors are experienced tech comm experts.

❗ IMPORTANT: Originally, the course took place on site, but it went online in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not clear whether the classes will remain online or revert to the original mode in the coming years.

Benefits of studying Technical Communication at Vistula include:

  • Official training to prepare you for the ITCQF exam.
  • Licenses for professional paid software, such as:
    • Microsoft Office
    • Confluence
    • Jira
    • MadCap Flare
    • MemoQ.
  • Insight from professionals active in the field; no “textbook knowledge”!
  • Projects to help you practice the tools, polish your writing, and build your portfolio.
  • Teamwork tasks to reflect real-life cases and technical writing workflow.
  • Working with various technologies and tools:
    • Version control (Git, GitHub)
    • Code editors (VSC)
    • Static site generators (Jekyll, GitHub Pages),
    • Content and project management software (Confluence, Jira)
    • HAT software (MadCap Flare)
    • XML editors (OxygenXML)
    • HTML/CSS
    • DITA XML
    • Markdown
  • Learning about the trends, standards, and practices:
    • Docs as Code,
    • Single sourcing and reuse,
    • Information architecture,
    • User experience,
    • Accessibility,
    • STE

and more!

Definitely consider enrolling. Apart from a valuable point to add on your resume, you will get a chance to build a nice portfolio and to make friends with other technical writers.

  1. There is some anecdotal bias toward candidates with engineering background, so with all else being equal a technical degree might give you an edge. ↩

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