Ewa Treehouse is an e-learning platform with plenty of courses that can boost your tech writing skills as well as familiarize you with some coding concepts that can be also extremely helpful in this job. In most of the courses, you are supposed to complete some practical exercises, which makes the learning even more effective.
This is not a sponsored article. I’ve used Treehouse frequently over the past couple of years and I can honestly recommend it as a great source of some good training material.
In this article, I prepared a list of courses that can be especially helpful if you consider starting a tech writing career or you simply want to expand your skills.
Table of Contents
Introduction to HTML and CSS
Introduction to HTML and CSS will help you to get familiar with some basics related to HTML and CSS. Both HTML and CSS appear quite frequently in job offers for technical writers, though often as a nice-to-have requirement. This course can take you a couple of hours, so that’s not an extreme amount of time while the benefits of it can be huge. All courses on Treehouse that are related to coding contain some hands-on coding exercises. You really have to fully understand the content to go through and finish the course. Additionally, you can always try out your new skills in the coding playground that goes with the platform – there’s no need to install any additional software on your computer to proceed with learning.
HTML basics
HTML basic goes even deeper into the topic of HTML. While I think that CSS is not that essential in most of the tech writing tasks, HTML on the other hand can be quite helpful. I admit that the basic knowledge of HTML helped me a lot in many tech writing tasks and it also allowed me to solve some basic problems.
Introduction to QA engineering
I always say that every tech writer must also be a tester to some extent. That’s why it’s really great if you have some basics understanding of testing principles and strategies. Introduction to QA engineering will help you to get familiar with this topic. Additionally, this course will teach your how to report bugs, which is definitely a part of tech writers’ daily tasks.
Introduction to Git
Introduction to Git will provide you with basic knowledge about repositories and version control. It’s not set in stone that as a tech writer, you’ll work with Git (for example, I use SVN), but this course will teach you some basic concepts that can make your start in the IT world much easier.
Markdown Basics Course
Markdown is a tool used in many companies to create technical documentation. That’s why it frequently appears in job offers. Markdown Basics Course will give you a solid understanding of Markdown so that you can shine in a job interview.
Scrum Basic
Many IT companies work in Scrum or similar methodologies. Scrum Basic Course will show you in a nutshell what working in Scrum looks like. Thanks to that, you will be able to jump into a Scrum-based daily routine without any problems.
Also, check out this article to find out more about tech writing in agile and scrum.
Creating User Experiences
Creating User Experiences will familiarize you with some concepts related to UX which is also an important part of tech writing. Because technical writers create user-facing content, it’s essential that you understand the user needs and are able to put to yourself in your users’ shoes.
