My Experience at the Empower Her X Non-Tech In Tech Bootcamp

This is a documentation of my overall learning progress at the boot camp organized by Empower her community and Non-Tech In Tech.

I enrolled in the technical writing track because I wanted to learn how to document my experiences as a software developer.
The boot camp lasted for six weeks, with a curriculum made available for each participant to use and adjust their schedules for classes held twice per week.

Week One: Introduction to Technical Writing

For the first week, we were taught the basics of technical writing.
Our tutors, Benny Ifeanyi Iheagwara and Blessing Ene Anyebe introduced themselves, told us about their job roles and experience as technical writers, and interacted with us at the beginning of the first class, by asking a few of us about our present occupations, and our knowledge of technical writing.

The lessons of the first week were eventful, filled with starter resources and beginner guides. I documented the first week of my learning in this blog post.

Our first task for the week was to create a blog and submit the links that prioritized technical content like Hashnode, dev.to, Medium and Hackernoon. Those that had existing blog accounts on publications we were asked to submit the links in a Google Docs spreadsheet provided.

Week Two: Tools In Technical Writing

For the second week of learning, we were taught about the tools every technical writer needed to know how to use. Another tutor, Timonwa Pelumi Akintokun, was invited to assist with this.

The tools we were assigned to comprehend were split into the following;

• Research tools
• Note-taking tools
• Authoring tools
• Media tools
• Editing tools
• Publishing tools
• Documentation tools
• Collaborative and management tools

An interesting concept that came up was Docs-as-Code: an approach that makes technical writers implement their knowledge on software development on documentation.
It can be used through the following means:

• Version control using Git
• Automated testing, building, and delivery
• Issue tracking, and
• The use of plain-text markup, a popular example of which is Markdown, is used to edit our articles and make them readable for the audience.

The task for this week was to write an article on any topic of our choice and submit it in the Google Docs link in the spreadsheet provided for submission.

Week Three: Article Reviews

The third week of learning was dedicated to the meticulous examination of our articles by the tutors.
It was educative as it felt like working on a real-world project and getting feedback from employers.
The key points I got from the reviews were:

• Use of outline while writing
• The essential use of Writing and Editing tools such as Grammarly, Hemmingway Editor and Markdown to edit the articles and access their readability.
• Choosing an eye-catching topic, and writing an interesting introduction and conclusion.
• Use pictures that were relevant to the article, giving credit to their owners, and referring to used sources.
• Avoiding plagiarism, including previously written work.

At the end of the review, we were asked to publish the first articles on our blogs.

Week Four: SEO Optimization in Technical Writing

SEO Optimization is simply making your article more accessible to search engines.
We were taught how to structure our articles to reach the target audience by fixing the following:

• Avoiding plagiarism.
• Cross-posting across different blogs or publications using canonical links.
• Giving the articles well-structured titles.
• Using headings appropriately.
• Using the right keywords, internal and external links.
• Ensuring accessibility and responsiveness across devices. At the end of this week’s lesson, we were tasked with our second article, to write and publish them on our blogs.

Week Five

Part 1: API Documentation

The fifth week of learning came with a different ball game: API Documentation.

At the end of the lesson, my initial misconceptions about the concept were cleared.
I had thought APIs were written by technical writers, but I learned that the job of the technical writer was simply to document the use of the API which was developed by the programmer, and this requires knowledge of programming languages.

This class was handled by Light Segun, who did a wonderful job of explaining the concepts in simple terms.

Part 2: Open-Source Contribution as a Technical Writer

It is a common misconception that only programmers can contribute to open-source projects, so this class was well received as it taught the intricacies of technical writing and its place in the open-source community.
We learned the basics of open-source contribution, projects to contribute to, free and paid open-source programs, and how to curate our technical writing portfolios using our contributions.

Additional lessons we received were on the following:

• How to get paid as freelancing technical writers
• How to curate our portfolios and resumes to aid job search
• Technical writing communities to join
• How to manage productivity and deal with writer’s block.
• Acing technical interviews.
• Webinars and Q/A sessions with professionals.

Week Six: Conclusion

For our last week in the boot camp, we were tasked with writing our third and final article, which would double as our project.
I choose to write about my experience during the boot camp because I wanted it to be of help to individuals with an interest in technical writing.

My Learning Trajectory

At the start of the boot camp, I had limited knowledge as to what was expected knowledge of a technical writer.

However, the lessons and tasks emboldened me to move on and try out new things.
The following are my achievements:

• I published my first article on dev.to
• I learned how to share my progress on social media platforms, especially on Twitter.
• My first in-depth tutorial, and second article got featured on Dev Community.
• I started my open-source journey by becoming a contributing author at FreeCodeCamp.

Resources

This GitHub repository contains the resource compilation used for the boot camp.

Wrap Up

Technical writing is an amazing career path, and this boot camp solidified my interest in making something worthwhile out of it.
I look forward to reaching new heights with my newly acquired skills!