Professional Interview
I have to interview a professional in the computer science field for my technical communications class in college. I'm going to post a few questions -- if anyone with any experience in professional computer science could answer them it would be greatly appreciated!
1. What sort of writing (other than coding) takes up the most of your time in your field?
2. How does the writing in your field differ from the writing in your education?
3. Do you use many images/graphs/models in your writing?
4. How much time in a normal week is spent writing in comparison to other tasks?
5. Who is the audience of your writing, generally?
Once again thank you to any who are able to answer these! Please also include a name or alias I can refer to you by in my essay! :)
1. What sort of writing (other than coding) takes up the most of your time in your field?
2. How does the writing in your field differ from the writing in your education?
3. Do you use many images/graphs/models in your writing?
4. How much time in a normal week is spent writing in comparison to other tasks?
5. Who is the audience of your writing, generally?
Once again thank you to any who are able to answer these! Please also include a name or alias I can refer to you by in my essay! :)
Whatever writing you do that isn't coding; Documentation, Memos, Letters, I suppose design models as well.
It would really help me out if someone answered, save me a bunch of time
It would really help me out if someone answered, save me a bunch of time
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asked about what is the methodoly used , what is the development cycle for that kind of software , which tools do you use , what requires the most of your time , does this software has a specific target , what is a design document , etc.
I have a Computer Science degree and am currently working as a Junior Software Engineer, which I would believe qualifies as "professional computer science".
1. Intra-team communication, either direct (e-mails, memos, etc.) or indirect (notes about tasks on issue tracker, commit messages, etc.).
2. I'm not quite sure what this means. What I do is the kind of writing you practice in a technical writing class; short and to the point while including the necessary information.
3. No, but I imagine I would if I had to architect a system or subsystem. My current use of these is limited to screenshots.
4. Hard to say, but I'd guess somewhere between 20% to 50%, depending on what I'm doing.
5. Almost exclusively the rest of my team, with the main targets being other developers, testers, and a technical writer who writes, among other things, release notes for the software.
As for credit/attribution, you may use my username "Zhuge".
1. Intra-team communication, either direct (e-mails, memos, etc.) or indirect (notes about tasks on issue tracker, commit messages, etc.).
2. I'm not quite sure what this means. What I do is the kind of writing you practice in a technical writing class; short and to the point while including the necessary information.
3. No, but I imagine I would if I had to architect a system or subsystem. My current use of these is limited to screenshots.
4. Hard to say, but I'd guess somewhere between 20% to 50%, depending on what I'm doing.
5. Almost exclusively the rest of my team, with the main targets being other developers, testers, and a technical writer who writes, among other things, release notes for the software.
As for credit/attribution, you may use my username "Zhuge".
CS degree, working as a 'software engineer' (programmers aren't engineers, whatever) for the last ~3 months.
1. IRC or Lync is most of my written communication with my team. We also have to write up functional test plans for all the code we write, which can take awhile.
2. I'm not writing literature analysis anymore, but as Zhuge said, it's basically the type of writing you learn in a business or technical writing course.
3. Besides screenshots, I don't.
4. Depends on the task. Sometimes as much as 60%-70%, sometimes not even 10%.
5. My team of developers, our testers, product owners. These are all either here in the office with me, or in an office in Bangalore.
Call me ResidentBiscuit.
1. IRC or Lync is most of my written communication with my team. We also have to write up functional test plans for all the code we write, which can take awhile.
2. I'm not writing literature analysis anymore, but as Zhuge said, it's basically the type of writing you learn in a business or technical writing course.
3. Besides screenshots, I don't.
4. Depends on the task. Sometimes as much as 60%-70%, sometimes not even 10%.
5. My team of developers, our testers, product owners. These are all either here in the office with me, or in an office in Bangalore.
Call me ResidentBiscuit.
Master's in CS with 30 years of programming experience.
1. Enormous amounts of email and fielding support tickets. The "real" writing is mostly design documents.
2. How does the writing in your field differ from the writing in your education?
It is technical writing, not creating writing. The goal is to concisely and accurately communicate ideas. One thing that any educator would find horrifying is that we don't worry about occasional grammatical or spelling errors. Many of my peers are not native English speakers and if we complained about their spelling it would just frustrate them with no real return. I should say however that everyone's English is very good, so the quality is about what you see on this forum, not the kind of shorthand you see on facebook.
3. Do you use many images/graphs/models in your writing?
Yes. Diagrams help clarify a design and relationships between components. Tables are very useful too.
4. How much time in a normal week is spent writing in comparison to other tasks?
I'd say I spend about 30% of my time composing emails and other writing. Only about 5% is on design documents.
5. Who is the audience of your writing, generally?
Other technical professionals.
1. Enormous amounts of email and fielding support tickets. The "real" writing is mostly design documents.
2. How does the writing in your field differ from the writing in your education?
It is technical writing, not creating writing. The goal is to concisely and accurately communicate ideas. One thing that any educator would find horrifying is that we don't worry about occasional grammatical or spelling errors. Many of my peers are not native English speakers and if we complained about their spelling it would just frustrate them with no real return. I should say however that everyone's English is very good, so the quality is about what you see on this forum, not the kind of shorthand you see on facebook.
3. Do you use many images/graphs/models in your writing?
Yes. Diagrams help clarify a design and relationships between components. Tables are very useful too.
4. How much time in a normal week is spent writing in comparison to other tasks?
I'd say I spend about 30% of my time composing emails and other writing. Only about 5% is on design documents.
5. Who is the audience of your writing, generally?
Other technical professionals.
Thank you for your responses! It's great to have a few different points of view on the subject. I'll be sure to compile all your answers and give credit where it is due :)
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