By Sheila Loring, Carolina Communiqué Managing Editor

The profession of technical writing has expanded to include many non-writing tasks such as designing online help systems, creating FrameMaker templates, and developing usability tests.

You can search the newsletter archives to find articles on these tasks. However, this issue of the newsletter addresses topics that are common among technical writers.

• Technical writers follow grammar rules, deciding when to use can instead of might or that before relative clauses. Kathy Underwood advises when definite articles are appropriate.
• At some point, technical writers consider how to land their first job or move forward on the career path. Meredith Kinder describes her own experience climbing the ladder.
• After a probing interview, a fellow technical writer faced the question, Is technical writing my calling? and came to a life-altering conclusion. (The author is anonymous, so there's no author name to link from.)
• Chapter president Andrea Wenger summarizes educational presentations from this year and looks forward to next year's plans.
• Finally, a universal topic: Christina Eftekhar identifies the most important traits of a good manager, interjecting personal experiences that many of us share.

Do you struggle with any other issues at work? Let us know, and you might find answers in a future issue of the newsletter.

Sheila can be reached at newsletter at stc-carolina dot org.