For the last few months, since I was appointed to be the editor in chief of ASPAlliance, I have been tasked with increasing the quality of content for that company.  The editing team is, at this point, voluntary, so striking a balance between publishing in a timely manner and ensuring quality has been difficult.  My academic experience and general detailed-oriented nature equips me for a job like this, and even though I've been exposed to all manner of writing (as a regular “user,” i.e., reader), I'd not until then been tasked with editing as a job.  I mention this to give some background as to where these tips are coming from.  I've also written a fair amount, academically, dialectically, and technically, so take my tips within that context.

First off, if you were one of those people who never cared about spelling or grammar in school, you are more than likely not suited to be a writer.  In my opinion, a good writer needs to be concerned with these things.  This is not to say there are no exceptions or that a writer must be perfect (Lord knows I'm not), but I think we all are aware that some people just don't care.

Ultimately, there is nothing inherently good about a particular grammar or spelling specification.  They are simply conventions that have been worked out over, especially, the last five hundred years or so to make written communication more effective.  Yet that is precisely why they're important. 

If you want to write well, you should like to write.  You should be fascinated by the various combinations of words and the various meanings the same combinations of words can have given different punctuation and word order.  In order to be fascinated by these, you have to be familiar with them, so ultimately, you need to care about grammar and spelling because these facilitate written communication.

I can tell you that, as an editor, if someone clearly does not care about these things, that is, if the text is wrought with errors, which can be seen rather quickly, I will not bother editing it and will reject it (for publication).  While I try to be understanding, especially of those for whom English is not their native tongue, there is a point at which editing becomes a process of rewriting, and I am not interested in doing that.  So if you want to write, you need to be able to write with relatively few errors.  If you don't know the difference, you probably shouldn't write until you read a book or take a class or two on writing composition (as the classes are commonly referred to).

As a technical editor, I also expect my authors to have virtually error-free code.  If there's a sample project, I expect it to compile with no problems.  If there are code snippets, I expect to be able to drop them into, e.g., Visual Studio, (with perhaps a few additions) and get them to compile.  I recently withdrew from editing a book because the author's code samples were so poor that editing became far too time-consuming to justify.

These two things--taking the time to learn to write English with few errors and taking the time to ensure your code is accurate--go a very, very long with me (as I imagine they would with any editor).  If you want to get started (and succeed) in the technical writing industry, take these to heart.

If you feel that you can do these things and want to publish something soon, feel free to contact me with a writing sample.  We are always looking for new authors at the ASPAlliance, and we are actively working to improve both the content and general user experience of the site.  Even if you don't want to write but have useful suggestions about the site, feel free to send that feedback to me.

With this post, I'm inaugurating a new “Writing” category on my blog.  I plan to post little grammar and stylistic tips to help anyone who is interested.  Certainly, on some of these points, there are differing opinions in the academic and professional fields, based on the style used and even the lack of clear consensus, but I can assure you that the tips won't hurt you any.  Just be sure, if you are writing in the academic arena, to double-check your style guide, as these finer points are often used as pedantic shibboleths.