The MasterClass in TechComm

Listen to a tech writer working in the bioresearch industry share how her career path led her into pre-clinical trial work related to COVID-19.

Angela Trenkle is a scientific technical writer with over a decade of experience in the field. The early stages of her career entailed hands-on work at three Smithsonian Institutions, the National Aquarium, and the Chesapeake Conservation Corps Fellowship Program. Her love of science combined with her passion for writing led her into the field of scientific technical communication at a pre-clinical research organization where her work involves contributing to the documentation of study reports for various infectious diseases including COVID-19.

Angela is a very active member of the Society for Technical Communication Washington, DC-Baltimore Chapter, and the American Medical Writers Association. Angela holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and a certification in Technical Writing. When she is not working, she enjoys reading, writing, traveling, running, weight-lifting, and spending as much time outdoors as possible.

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About the Episode:

A Google search for "UX writing" returns 83 million results. Spotify, Google, Yelp – and many other companies – are looking for "UX writers."

What is UX writing? How does it differ from what you might be doing now as a technical communicator?

What does this new job title mean? What skills do you need to be a great UX writer?

Explore these questions with Dr. Ginny Redish in our September 30, 2020 podcast episode.

With lots of examples of successful (and unsuccessful) UX writing, Ginny will discuss how UX work isn't new, and is very appropriate for technical communicators. UX writing may be the challenge you want for the next part of your career.

This episode is will leave you with a deep understanding of UX writing and the skills to do it.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Janice (Ginny) Redish has been UX writing for decades, long before it took on that name. Early in her career, Ginny and the group she led at the American Institutes for Research, transformed system-oriented user manuals into the task-oriented, plain language instructions we all write today.

In 1979, Ginny put together one of the first independent usability testing laboratories in North America where users from IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and other companies went to experiment with interfaces where Ginny led as the director for a decade. During this time, Ginny and her colleagues were told to "just test the documentation" but found huge issues in user interfaces, which led Ginny to realize that designers and developers need help from technical communicators for the words in products (not just about products). 

Ginny is a long-time member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and of the STC Washington, DC-Baltimore Chapter. She is an STC Fellow and recipient of both an STC President's Award and the Ken Rainey Award for Excellence in Research. 

With Janice James, Ginny co-founded the STC SIG on Usability (now Usability and User Experience). Ginny has spoken at many STC conferences, chaired STC committees, and continues to serve on the Editorial Board of Technical Communication.

Reviewers rave about Ginny's latest book, "Letting Go of the Words – Writing Web Content that Works" in which clear guidelines and numerous full-color examples, help readers perfect their skills on content planning, content strategy, organizing, writing, designing, and testing content for websites and apps. 

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