Technical writers wearing multiple hats

Technical writers should have the blended knowledge of writing and tools. While tools do not only mean software used for documentation, it also includes the application software about which writers need to work around. Manager need to decide whom to involve based on technology of a project. Content update related project would prefer a content enthusiasts, whereas a technical resource for technology centric project.

Steps-by-step procedure to submit IT Return

July month is the time to file you IT return. Income Tax Department has come up with an easy way to file IT return.
Step 1: Log in to the Income Tax Department site. (https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/).
Note:

• For registration, PAN card is mandatory, and this number will be your user ID.
• Keep your Form 16 handy, that is provided by your company.

Step 2:
a. In the Quick Link section, click Quick e-File ITR.
b. Provide the IT returns detail as illustrated in Figure 1.
Note: If you have income from any other source other than interest (such as, shares, property deals, and other), which attracts tax under different clauses; select correct ITR form.
Figure 1. Prepare and Submit Online

Step 3:
a. In the Personal Information tab, provide your personal details.
b. Click the Save Draft icon.

Technical Writers vs Instructional Designers

The objective of a technical writer is to help the users in using the product. When a user is struck in understanding a feature or task, they consults the document as a reference. While an instructional designer make the user learn. The learner needs to go through the complete instructional design deliverable. If we talk about WBTs or CBTs, each and every activity of learner is tracked. The learner uses the instructional design deliverable as a textbook and not as a reference guide.
To conclude, technical writers write documents for potential users while instructional designers for potential learners.

Do you like to read a user guide or view a video tutorial?

People prefer instant help, sometime they don’t like to read the content to find the answer of their queries. It is helpful if someone shows you the steps to solve the problem, rather than navigating the user guide and troubleshoot the problem. People sometime prefer a video tutorial to view the how-to-do task.

Nowadays we get everything on mobile, prefer a video or online help for a product.  For software products, printed document will soon be past.  The internet and mobile has reduced the distance between the user and the vendor.
The product simulations and demonstrations can attract the attention of people. A technical writer can create video tutorial by using the Captivate and Articulate, these e-learning tools can also create course and quiz for the learners.

The sales personnel prefer a product demonstration for the clients and seminars. These demonstrations give a better walk through the product in a nut shell, instead of running the product. The beta version of the product might not be ready on time or create run-time error.

People can grasp the features of a product by watching the tutorial at their own time. Watching a video is always fun than reading a document.

Multi-Language

Multilingual people in IT help to build the harmony and brotherhood among the people, where most states of the India are divided on the basis language. IT is a huge resource pull of technical peoples of different region, religion, caste, language, and gender are present. Hindi is India’s official language and English as second official language, outsourced jobs are boarded in India because of skilled English speaking peoples. In addition, because of multilingual peoples are working in a single place, they are sometime forced to talk in English.

In India, many universities and institutes provide foreign language trainings. There are many doctorates in French, Spanish, and German languages. Now, these foreign language skills are used in IT companies and India too is able to attract jobs from European countries.

Technology In Communication

Technical writers are communication specialist who add real value to the internal organization, products, and services. In this age of technology, the ability to organize, present, and transmit information with clarity, coherence, and precision is important. User-friendly communication tools helps us to prepare most voluminous technical documents with greater speed and efficiency.
Advantages of tools usage are:
• Speed and efficiency
• Professional appearance and presentable
• Vivid and greater appeal
• Facilitates revising, editing, and formatting
Limitations:
• Information overload or difficulty in effective information selection
• System Failures
• Require technical proficiency
• Fatigue and Frustration

Communication Etiquettes

1. Do not write "the same" in an email - it makes little sense to them.
Example - I will try to organize the project artifacts and inform you of the same when it is done. (This is somewhat an Indian construct.)
Correct: I will try to organize the project artifacts and inform you when that is done. Information on Email notification
2. Do not write or say, "I have some doubts on this issue". The term "doubt" is used in the sense of doubting someone - we use this term because in Indian languages, the word for a "doubt" and a "question" is the same.
Correct: I have a few questions on this issue.
3. The term "regard" is not used much in American English. They usually do not say "regarding this issue" or "with regard to this".
Correct: "about this issue".
4. Do not say "pardon" when you want someone to repeat what they said. The word "pardon" is unusual for them and is somewhat formal.
Correct: Apologize.
5. Americans do not understand most of the Indian accent immediately - They only understand 75% of what we speak and then interpret the rest. Therefore try not to use shortcut terms such as "Can't" or "Don't". Use the expanded "Cannot" or "Do not".
6. Do not use the term "screwed up" liberally. If a situation is not good, it is better to say, "The situation is messed up". Do not use words such as "shucks", or "pissed off".
7. As a general matter of form, Indians interrupt each other constantly in meetings - DO NOT interrupt a client when they are speaking. Over the phone, there could be delays - but wait for a short time before responding.
8. When explaining some complex issue, stop occasionally and ask "Does that make sense?" This is preferable than "Do you understand me?"
9. In email communications, use proper punctuation. To explain something, without breaking your flow, use semicolons, hyphens or parenthesis. Example: You have entered a new bug (the popup not showing up) in the defect tracking system; we could not reproduce it - although, a screenshot would help.
10. Reference to the actual bug is added in parenthesis so that the sentence flow is not broken. Break a long sentence using such punctuation.
11. In American English, a mail is a posted letter. An email is electronic mail. When you say "I mailed the information to you", it means you sent an actual letter or package through the postal system.
Correct: "I emailed the information to you."
12. To "prepone" an appointment is an Indian usage. There is no actual word called prepone. You can "advance" an appointment.
13. In the term "N-tier Architecture" or "3-tier Architecture", the word "tier" is not pronounced as "Tire". Many people pronounce it this way. The correct pronunciation is "tea-yar". The "ti" is pronounced as "tea".
14. The usages "September End", "Month End", "Day End" are not understood well by Americans. They use these as "End of September", "End of Month" or "End of Day".
15. Americans have weird conventions for time - when they say the time is "Quarter of One", they mean the time is 1:15. Better to ask them the exact time.
16. Indians commonly use the terms "Today Evening", "Today Night". These are not correct; "Today" means "This Day" where the Day stands for Daytime. Therefore "Today Night" is confusing.
Correct: "This Evening", "Tonight". That applies for "Yesterday Night" and "Yesterday Evening"; "Last Night" and "Last Evening".
17. There is no word called "Updation". You update somebody. You wait for updates to happen to the database. Avoid saying "Updation".
18. When you talk with someone for the first time, refer to them as they refer to you - in America, the first conversation usually starts by using the first name. Therefore you can use the first name of a client. Do not say "Sir". Do not call women "Madam".
19. It is usual convention in initial emails (particularly technical) to expand abbreviations, this way: We are planning to use the Java API for Registry (JAXR). After mentioning the expanded form once, subsequently you can use the abbreviation.
20. Make sure you always have a subject in your emails and that the subject is relevant. Do not use a subject line such as "HI".
21. Avoid using "Back" instead of "Back" Use "ago". Back is the worst word for American.
(for Days use "Ago", For hours use "before".)
22. Avoid using "but" instead of "But" use "However".
23. Avoid using "Yesterday" hereafter use "Last day".
24. Avoid using "Tomorrow" hereafter use "Next day".
Example: A few days back, I met with an accident.
Correct: A few days ago, I have an accident.
25. In conversation or informally we often use the following terms - revert back, return back, and refer back. Although Edited English may reject this use. Revert means “to go back,” “to return to,”

Problem in Voice Support

I came across with a problem in online bank transaction, and tried the phone banking to get assistance from through customer care. In the product menu selected the numeric option to get in the related service, even after following a long process I did not had the option to speak with the support personnel. Then I came across a scenario that after giving two consecutive wrong details of my ATM card, machine directed me to the voice support section. However, the customer executive could not able to answer to my question and put me on hold; astonishingly my call was directed to the main menu.
I again followed the same scenario to reach the customer care. This time the person gave vague steps to follow, and then told that the query doesn’t belong to their department. In this way I was moving from one department to other over phone. Even once during the conversation, phone connection was cut off.
Then I opened the online customer care section and started reading the FAQs and got the solution.
So, instead of spending time to sort-out the problem from the customer care, text-help could have been read earlier from the website.
Voice support is very handy to get the query answered. But it is found that all service providers segregate the voice support into different departments, callers are given whole lot of options to find the right one and ultimately it never becomes easy to get the right information.