Jobs
Technical Author
A technical writer is a professional communicator whose task is to convey complex information in simple terms to an audience of the general public or a very select group of readers. Technical writers research and create information through a variety of delivery media (electronic, printed, audio-visual, and even touch).[1] Example types of information include online help, manuals, white papers, design specifications, project plans, and software test plans. With the rise of e-learning, technical writers are increasingly hired to develop online training material.
According to the Society for Technical Communication (STC):[2]
Technical writing is sometimes defined as simplifying the complex. Inherent in such a concise and deceptively simple definition is a whole range of skills and characteristics that address nearly every field of human endeavor at some level. A significant subset of the broader field of technical communication, technical writing involves communicating complex information to those who need it to accomplish some task or goal.
In other words, technical writers take advanced technical concepts and communicate them as clearly, accurately, and comprehensively as possible to their intended audience, ensuring that the work is accessible to its users.
Kurt Vonnegut described technical writers as:[3]
...trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writing. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to the reader.
Engineers, scientists, and other professionals may also be involved in technical writing (developmental editing, proofreading, etc.), but are more likely to employ professional technical writers to develop, edit and format material, and follow established review procedures as a means delivering information to their audiences.
Mapperley is a residential and commercial area of north-eastern Nottingham, England. The area is bounded by Sherwood to the north-west, Thorneywood to the south and Gedling to the east.
At various periods the terms 'Mapperley' and 'Mapperley Plains' have been applied to lands, on either side of Woodborough Road (B684), from a point at the junction of Mapperley Road, north-east for a distance of some 3+3⁄4 miles (6.0 km), to that point where the road forks towards Woodborough village. The stretch of Woodborough Road from Mapperley Road to Porchester Road is called 'Mapperley Plains' on Jackson's map of 1851–66, for example.[1][2] This section considers the history of the suburb within the present day city boundary.
The origins of the city of Nottingham suburb called Mapperley seem to be found in the fourteenth century. Writing in the 1670s about lands in the lordship of Basford (i.e. west of present-day Woodborough Road) which were called cornerswong, Dr Robert Thoroton, notes:
In the time of Richard the second (reigned 1377-99), Thomas Mapurley was a considerable man at Nottingham…. He, or his posterity, became possessed of the chiefest part of these grounds, which was the occasion of them being called Maperley's Closes; and since there being a cottage-house or two, and some odd barns erected, it goes for a small Hamlet called Mapurley.[3]
