Author: smiths1

By Denise Abney

November 13, 2015

A Curriculum Vitae is a document that showcases your education background, personal qualifications and relevant examples of previous experiences. To say it plainly, a Curriculum Vitae is a resume covering every academic accomplishment you had in college.

For brevity, I will refer to a Curriculum Vitae as a CV.

When creating your CV, you want to display the skills you gained through college courses as well as list key experiences, like presentations and volunteer work that affected your educational journey in a positive way. This also highlights your personal qualities sharpened during your college career.

It is vital for all students to invest some time in creating a well structured and detailed CV. It is especially important for professional writers because the term of professional writer is relatively new and because of that not many employers and even some grad schools won’t be sure what a professional writer is and what they can do.

In this situation a professional writer will need to produce proof of the software systems mastered, the technical writing projects worked on and ability to create a usable and highly affective document plus many of their other skills.

Listing these abilities in a professional document like a CV will help a potential employer be able to see what value you can bring to their company. It will show grad schools and law schools whether or not the student is qualified and prepared to enter into their program. The stakes are high when applying for a job, grad school or law school so your CV needs to be properly formatted and excessively detailed.

Let’s explore what goes into a CV a little more.

What goes on your CV? First, you need to put your contact information underneath a header containing your contact information. Your header should show your name, address, phone number and e-mail address. A suggested order of information is listed below.

What matters the most is deciding what on your CV is most relevant to the situation you are using it for. Whatever is the most relevant should go right under your basic contact information. For example, if you are applying for a position as a tutor, it would be wise to list your experience working at the Writing Center where you assisted students in editing their papers.

A CV needs to include:

Education-This should appear first under your contact information. Be sure to only list your most recent education first. The order should be grad school (if applicable), undergrad and lastly high school.

Honors and Awards – No matter what you are listing, always list startwith the most recent. Only include academic and professional awards from your time as an undergrad. Scholarships can be included under this section.

Professional Experience- This means internships. Every student should strive to have at least one internship during their time as an undergrad.

Publications and Presentations– Have anything published? Did you give a presentation at a conference or a club when you were an undergrad? Put it on your CV!

Extracurricular and Volunteer Experience-This category refers to any club memberships you had as an undergrad. Be sure to include what position you held. Also, another important category to list here is volunteer work. Be sure to include any time you spent volunteering in the community and describe the project in detail.

Interests-Only list interests relative to the environment you’re sending your CV.

Certifications and Licenses-Certified in a program like QuickBooks or do you have a license in a professional area? Put it on your CV!

Professional Affiliations – Only if it adds credibility to your CV.

Professional Activities – Job experience relative to your academic experience. For example, if you are applying for a job as a teacher it and you spent time working as a teacher’s assistant it would be wise to include that experience under this bullet point.

Research – Work on a university research project while an undergrad? Add it to your CV.

Added Qualifications– If somehow one of the topics above doesn’t match a qualification that you think should be put on your CV, put it under this bullet point. If a student includes all the fields mentioned above, their potential employer or grad school will have a firm grip on what to expect from the student.

Remember, a Curriculum Vitae is all about marketing your educational background and skill set. Do not be afraid to show off your accomplishments off. The more relevant information you can put on your CV, the better.

Let your Curriculum Vitae show your potential employer, grad school or law school exactly how prepared you are to become an active and beneficial member of their program.

By Devin G. Williams

November 13, 2015

Many of today’s most impressive tools are not physical, but digital.

Discovering the availability and abundance of current software that makes dozens of otherwise dreadful tasks ‘behave’ has been one of my favorite parts of completing my writing minor at UAB. And I know you wouldn’t disagree that today’s professional writers require nothing short of such technological resources on a regular basis.

By now you’ve certainly learned that there is more to being a professional writer than merely the writing process! There are programs I’ve learned about over the past few semesters that I wish I had known about sooner, for greater ease of organizing, constructing, and editing my projects. I will share a few of those programs with you now.

Scribus

This desktop publishing software will make your efforts look just as professional as mainstream media. That goes for brochures, reports, magazines, memos and more.

Once you get the hang of using it, tasks such as creating and applying master pages, arranging pages and inserting page numbers will be a breeze.

You’ll also find that working with text is far more manageable than it is in the word processing program you use to actually produce your text.

If you want to drastically simplify the publishing process and produce strikingly clean-cut large-scale printed and/or digital works, you can’t go wrong with Scribus.

Inkscape

A favorite among hobbyists, artists and graphic designers, this vector graphics editing program is very useful for editing, cropping and resizing images.

What “vector” means is that Inkscape operates with lines rather than pixels in displaying content onscreen – resulting in a pure, clear picture regardless of zooming or magnification.

Identifiable by its inkblot mountain logo, this software will help you make text-based graphics full of color, texture and depth as well as apply neat visual effects that are easier to achieve than you realize. Stop using Microsoft Word’s “Word-Art” feature and that archaic Paint program to do the job, and jump on into the world of Inkscape.

GIMP

Don’t let that unfamiliar little dog (that’s Wilbur, official GIMP mascot) discourage you from integrating GIMP, or “GNU Image Manipulation Program” into your toolkit.

While this incredibly versatile software would take some time to fully master, you can immediately benefit from learning the photo editing and retouching functions you will wield. And GIMP is certainly well-equipped for any text-related work you might have in mind.

On the more extreme end, you can pull some visual stunts with layer masks and image/photo combinations in GIMP.

Writing in the Digital Sphere

For most people, using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint will suffice, but for those creating digital documents of a higher caliber, superior software is a must.

Each of these three programs may seem intimidating at first, but with practice you’ll find it was well worth exploring each one (you may begin by viewing the short, student-made tutorial videos on the PWC website). I cringe at the thought of your potential being stifled by the limitations of yesterday’s methods.

You won’t miss them once you muster up the courage or incentive (or simply give into the curiosity) to download and give these tools a try!

So how much will it cost you to adopt this software? Not a nickel.

Waiting right now on portableapps.com are these programs I have just introduced, along with many more various apps – for free.

You may be thinking, “I’ve been tricked before with the whole “free” scheme,” but this is no rip-off and that is a promise. The only expense you’ll have to cover is the dispensable five dollars or so that a flash drive will cost, that is, if you don’t already have one. But if that’s still somehow asking too much or you’re just not very keen on the idea of carrying your portable apps around on a flash drive with personal data, you can simply save the programs onto your desktop or access them through a Cloud Drive.

As long as you have a computer with an internet connection, you can download and use these convenient – and free – portable apps anywhere you please.

When it comes time to download from portableapps.com, it may be helpful to know in advance that among all those hundreds of categorized apps, you will find GIMP and Inkscape under “Graphics and Pictures” and Scribus under “Office.” Also, downloading will take some time. In terms of speed, it will be sort of like going back to dial-up internet all over again. But don’t worry, this is virtually the only necessary hassle involved, which only the utmost impatient individuals may find somewhat tedious. And I am confident you have developed all kinds of patience, as a diligent professional writer with so much to offer a community and world needing you. Go get those Portable Apps!

By Erica Turner

November 13, 2015

Technical writers are professional writers who frequently utilize software programs on a persistent basis. They are often responsible for creating written texts such as technical and instructional manuals, operating instructions, journal articles, and other documents that arrange complex material into documents that can be easily understood by readers.

When creating these documents, technical writers often use software programs such as Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe InDesign, MadCap Flare, and SnagIt to complete various aspects of a project. Determining the best software for technical writers depends on the type of scope of work that writer is working on.

Technical writers can potentially work on multiple elements of a document, such as the content of a document and design of a complex document, simultaneously. Because of this, technical writers often work with more than just one software program at a time to complete the various tasks of a project.

These software programs offer a platform that enables design and text modifications to any technical documentation.

Adobe FrameMaker

Adobe FrameMaker is a document processor designed for writing and editing complex and large documentation.

This software is optimal for a technical writer because it’s a processor that is able to incorporate graphics and images with a large body of text. Adobe FrameMaker is known for being the standard for writing book-length like technical documentation. This program is ideal for creating consistency within technical documentation.

This program uses a frame system (pre-designed pages) where the user can apply design frames to each page. The user can implement design elements such as tables, graphs, or graphics that can be included in different frames. This program can perform some of the basic writing tasks such as creating character formats and paragraph formats.

Adobe FrameMaker also gives the option of using the “unstructured” version of the software program. This feature allows the user to construct paragraphs without any forced logical structure.

The versatility with structured and unstructured approaches makes this software program perfect for complex documents technical writers can utilize.

Adobe InDesign

Adobe InDesign is similar to FrameMaker, but is used for less complex tasks. Technical writers can use Adobe InDesign to produce documents such as posters, fliers, brochures, newsletters, and book layouts.

This program was originally debuted for designers who created and published print publications. The program has evolved to support long-document features.

Despite its many uses, Adobe InDesign is not as helpful when it comes to creating help systems. The program does allow the user to easily control the text by adding or deleting multiple pages of content. The program also includes a great typographic composition ability that is used to create various types of layouts.

Styling the printed output of a document is straightforward in Adobe InDesign. This program works well for developing text and graphics together.

MadCap Flare

MadCap Flare is used to produce technical documentations, specifically documents such as online help, software documentation, policy and procedure manuals, and user guides. This software program can also develop help files that use hyperlinks to jump in between pages.

The program can create multiple files that may be joined with hyperlinks that can be used on the internet or be used as a glossary or index for any project. MadCap Flare is successful in single sourcing to other formats such as print and mobile. Flare offers complete customization to the user when designing the web help and print output of a document.

If a technical writer works for a company that mainly uses online documentations and online help, MadCap Flare would be the right choice for them.

One specific benefit of MadCap Flare is its open architecture. The program stores all of its content and project files as XML which makes all projects transparent and easily accessible.

SnagIt

SnagIt is a screen-capture software that a technical writer can use to capture images, design specs, different parts of a web page, or parts of a PC’s graphic user interface to assist in explaining or referring to specific items within a document.

Words tend to be abstract and less specific in description to readers when trying to learn a new software. These screen shots can help target a specific point on how to accomplish a certain task.

The screen shot images help present the information in visual form to the reader, and tends to make the learning experience easier. Some technical writers make use of screen captures in their online documentation as a part of the knowledge base for customers and employees.

SnagIt offers some of the following options: capturing images from a scrolling window and converting them to a pdf; capturing objects precisely within certain frames; and capturing the entire length of a website. All in all, screenshots help users navigate documents to any specific help section of any program.