Re: in the beginning there was....

["Steven J. Owens" <puff -at- netcom -dot- com>]

Jack Cluth writes:

> I find myself in need of some advice and guidance. My
> situation is that I'm trying to break into technical
> writing, but I do not have a technical background per se.
> What I do have is writing skills and colleagues who have
> told me I would be perfect in this field.
> 
> My dilemma is this: where to start? Where can I go to learn
> the skills and tools I would need to be useful and
> marketable? Essentially what I'm looking for is a foot in
> the door.
> 
> Any ideas, suggestions, cautions, etc. would be greatly
> appreciated. If this is off-topic, please accept my
> apologies. Please respond directly if possible. Muchas
> gracias.....

     Well, I *was* going to tell you to head for a search engine and
look for an archived copy of my old article on this topic, but it
appears it's no longer around, so I dug up a copy and put it at:

http://www.guild.net/~puff/becomingatechnicalwriter.html

     Enjoy.  By the way, while looking for the old copy, I went to
www.google.com and put in the arguments:

breaking into technical writing 

     This turned up several interesting and well written pages on
the topic.

Steven J. Owens
puff -at- netcom -dot- com