Resources

We have several articles and other information we would like to share. Experienced technical communicators may not learn anything new, but the article series may serve as a refresher. The target audience for the original articles were readers of a local computer newspaper in the St. Louis area. The newspaper no longer exists and the former publisher gave me permission to use the articles as I wished. So, here they are.

Newbies to technical communication or nonwriters who find themselves assigned to write a manual of any kind will benefit from them. The series of articles starts with planning your manual and ends with creating an index and a couple of articles about online documents.

We have a reading list that we have shared with many new and wannabe technical communicators. The list is just a starting point, but if you read all of these books, you'll have a good foundation.

You may also want to check our tip archive. That page has all the tips we've posted to the site.

Information for Independents

STC Rocky Mountain Chapter (RMC) Freelance FAQ

Presentations

Getting Started as an Independent Technical Communicator (progression session) - STC Annual Conference, May 2007 - Handout (PDF 49 KB)
Single Sourcing on a Shoestring with FrameMaker and WebWorks Publisher - WritersUA Conference, March 2006 - Handout (PDF 447 KB) and Supplemental Handout (PDF 97 KB)
From the Self-Employment Trenches - Building Client Base - STC Annual Conference, May 2004 - Handout (PDF 67 KB)

Finding Work as an Independent Technical Communicator - STC RMC CIC SIG, October 2003 - Handout (PDF 108 KB)
Creating FrameMaker Books and Templates for use with WebWorks Publisher - given at both the STC Region 7 Conference and the 2003 FrameUsers Conference both in October of 2003 - Slides (338 KB PDF)
Getting Started as an Independent Technical Communicator (progression session) - STC Annual Conference, May 2002 - Handout (PDF 19 KB)
Three Ways to Reuse Text in FrameMaker - STC Annual Conference, May 2002 - Handout (PDF 64 KB)
Creating Online Help Seminar for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of STC, April 2002 - Full handout (PDF 830 KB) and just the missing tables comparing graphic formats and browsers (60 KB)
10 Techniques for Single-Sourcing with FrameMaker - WinWriters Online Help Conference February 2002 - Handout (PDF 67 KB) and supplemental handout (PDF 98 KB)
WebWorks Publisher: An Overview - STC RMC Online SIG October 2001 - Handout (PDF 23 KB)
Autonumbering in FrameMaker (5.5.6) - STC RMC Chapter Meeting segment September 2000 - Handout (PDF 98 KB)
Growing Your Business - STC Region 7 Conference October 1998 - Slides (PDF 190 KB) and handout (PDF 192 KB)
Working as an Independent - Metro State College April 1998 - Handout (PDF 26 KB)