Ideal for you if you’re:
- Looking to start your career as a Technical Author, Technical Writer, or a similar role.
- Writing instructions, but you’ve never had any proper training in how to do this well.
- Looking to put together your own technical author apprenticeship scheme for your staff.
An affordable way to learn and master the skills of technical writing
Cherryleaf’s popular, and affordable, online Technical Author/technical writing course teaches you the key skills of technical writing for IT and software user documentation.
You’ll gain confidence you’re approaching each writing project in the right way, and creating content that follows best practice.
With our reviewed assessments option, you’ll get feedback on your work from experts. You’ll discover what you’re doing right, and how you could make it even better.
Updated content for 2021
We’ve updated some of the videos, exercises, and handouts to reflect technical writing in 2021.
Comments from delegates
Who is this course for?
This course is ideal for you if you need to:
- Create end-user documentation and other forms of instructional content with ease
- Master the fundamentals of technical writing
- Get a solid understanding of the Technical Author’s role.
This course is ideal for graduate and junior author induction training, as well as more experienced technical writers who’ve never had any formal training. It’s also great for people changing careers, and looking to become a Technical Author.
Looking for something more advanced?
You might be interested in our Intermediate/Advanced Technical Communication training course.
What is a Technical Author?
Technical Authors are sometimes known as: Technical Communicators, Technical Writers, Content Developers, Information Developers and Documentarians.
From prospects.ac.uk:
Technical Authors communicate specialist information about how products and services work and how they can be applied or used in a way that’s easy to understand. The information may be presented in the form of user guides for software applications, reference and instruction manuals for appliances, training guides, instructional videos or online help incorporated into software and operating guides.
For a successful career as a Technical Author you’ll need to be a fast learner, with excellent communication skills and the ability to convey factual information clearly and concisely.
The work is often varied, interesting and rewarding.
What will I learn?
In this course, we’ll take you through the process of creating technical documentation. You’ll learn and practise:
- The purpose and value of technical documentation (aka having an answer if people ask why you should be doing this work).
- The entire documentation process. We’ll explain what you need to do, from beginning to end. We cover planning, writing, editing, indexing, and production.
- The skills you need as a technical communicator.
- How to work more efficiently. This framework will help you avoid wasting time.
- How to work more effectively. We’ll show you how to write and design your information in a structured, useful, usable and informed way.
Course modules
The purpose of technical documentation
The different models for technical documentation
What is a Technical Author/Technical Writer?
Adopting a user-centred design approach
Overview of the writing process
Planning your content
Researching the product and audience
The Information Design stage
Software tools
Writing the topics – Overview
Writing the topics – How to write and present different types of information
Writing the topics – Using images and videos
Writing the topics – Index, Search and Metadata
Hyperlinking
Reviewing and editing
Prerequisites - None
What the course does not cover
This course does not cover:
- Specific XML documentation standards, such as DITA. You can take our DITA Fundamentals course afterwards.
- API documentation, but you can take our Writing REST API Documentation course afterwards.
- Writing User Interface text, but you can take our Writing UI Text course afterwards.
- STE or the ATA 100 regulatory documentation standard. The ATA 100 standard is used in the aerospace, military, railway, and automotive sectors.
Apart from that, this course will help you create the user assistance for your application or product.
Duration and delivery format
Learning Materials
- The course comprises 15 modules in total, which you can complete at your own pace. The course modules are delivered over the Web in small, manageable video presentations. You can pause the videos at any time and return to the course at times that suit you. These are full of practical examples and techniques you can use right away. You can download the course handouts as Word or PDF files.
Your project
- You’ll be given a project to work on throughout the course. This is a great way to put your learning to practice.
Feedback
- You’ll also have option of getting feedback on your exercises from an instructor.
Duration
- With the time needed to complete the exercises, you will need to allocate around two days in order to complete the course. You can spread this time over a few days, weeks or months.
- You have access to the course for 13 months. If you need more time, contact us.
Learn from the experts
As well as teaching technical communication, we also create end-user documentation, Help and UI text for clients. This means every course is based on practical experience of technical writing in today’s environment. The techniques you’ll learn on this course are the same ones used by our projects team. [ls_content_block id=”14263″]
This technical communication course is accredited by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators
The Technical Author/technical writing training course’s content is accredited by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators, the professional body for Technical Communicators in the United Kingdom. It is an independent assessment of the course’s quality.
This course is also recommended by the Society for Technical Communication (USA), the Australian Society for Technical Communication, and the Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand to their members.
Based in the United States or mainland Europe?
We’ve designed the course to work for people living all around the world.
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Course options and prices
Independent study option
Technical Author/technical writing online training course without external assessment.
- The cost is £185 per delegate (ex VAT).
- You have access to the 15 modules and the related exercises.
- The exercises in the course are not reviewed by us.
Assessed option
Our most popular option
Technical Author/technical writing online training course – with reviewed assessments, feedback and a certificate.
- The cost is £235 (ex VAT) / $299 per delegate.
- You have access to the 15 modules and the related exercises.
- You send your answers to the exercises in the course back to us for review and feedback.
- You’ll also receive a certificate, once you’ve completed the assessments correctly.
Two course bundles
We offer five bundle options that contain two courses at a discounted price.
- The cost is £295 (ex VAT) / $400 per delegate.
- Each bundle contains the technical Author/technical writing online training course – with reviewed assessments, feedback and a certificate.
Get the Technical Writing & Screenshots Course Bundle
Get the Technical Writing & UI Text Course Bundle
Get the Technical Writing & User Onboarding Course Bundle
You can also pay in US$ or EUROS. No VAT is charged to people outside of the EU.
How to order
Ordering is simple. Just click the green buttons above or the button below. You will be taken straight to our elearning system.
Free sample module
View the first module in the course
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There are episodes on starting a career as a Technical Author, writing a Technical Author CV, becoming a freelance Technical Author, the salaries they earn, and what the future holds for technical communication.
Need to train your whole team?
Group bookings
Is it possible to make one payment for multiple delegates? Yes!
If you have four or more people who you would like to take the course, we can offer a group booking option. Delegates get access for 13 months. Contact us for details.
Virtual classroom courses
We can also deliver this course as a virtual classroom course for teams within organisations. This is delivered in two three-hour sessions, usually on consecutive days, via Microsoft Teams or Zoom.