Content creation
The technical writer creates the content of the technical writing project in constant dialogue with the company's various stakeholders, such as R&D and marketing.
Definition
Section titled “Definition”The technical writer creates the content for the technical writing project through continuous communication with various stakeholders within the company, such as R&D departments and marketing. They take into consideration the various constraints associated with the lifecycle of technical writing materials. This phase follows information gathering and leads into validation and quality control.
Key principles
Section titled “Key principles”In particular, the technical writer is responsible for:
- having the content validated by their contacts to ensure that any necessary changes can be made as early as possible. This ensures that the result aligns with the project’s initial definition,
- minimizing the volume of source text and images to reduce production, maintenance, and translation costs,
- considering internationalization constraints from the outset of the project.
In a docs-as-code workflow
Section titled “In a docs-as-code workflow”When sources are text files under Version controlRecording every change to a set of files so that any earlier state can be restored, changes can be compared, and several people can work in parallel. Git is the most widely used version-control system; docs-as-code keeps documentation under version control next to the product code.View in glossary →, content creation happens on a BranchA parallel line of work in a version-control system: changes made on a branch stay isolated until they are reviewed and merged back into the main line, so several writers, releases or languages can progress at the same time.View in glossary → and is submitted as a Pull requestA request to merge a branch's changes into the main line, presented as a reviewable set of differences: reviewers comment, automated checks run, and approval is recorded before publication. GitLab calls it a merge request.View in glossary →, so the early validation described above becomes part of the normal flow rather than a separate step. Structuring each page by information type (Concept, task, referenceDITA XML's three base information types: a concept introduces or explains an idea, a task is a numbered procedure, and a reference is lookup material like a parameter list. This manual's own articles are tagged with the same three types.View in glossary →) and starting from the corresponding templates keeps content modular and reusable.
AI assistants can speed up first drafts, reformulation, or reuse of existing material. They do not replace the technical writer’s responsibility for accuracy: generated text must be checked against the product itself (see testing products) and go through the same review and validation as any other contribution.