Top 7 Tech Writing Certification Online In 2023
The craze of getting tech writing certification online is increasing among the people who want to enter the technical writing industry. Here, we will discuss general tech writing, reasons to pursue a career in tech writing, why you should get tech writing certification online, and where you can get it.
Now here we will touch upon all the things in detail.
What is Technical Writing?
Technical writing is the process of getting thorough knowledge about the product or service and presenting it to the user in a simple and easy-to-understand language. In other words, the core purpose of a technical writer is to dissect complex ideas into an appropriate piece that makes end-users life simple.
In the initial stages, software manuals, instructions of user manuals, and process documentation were considered part of technical writing. However, now the time has changed, and hence, tech writing involves various things like reports, writing summaries, etc.
In short, you can consider any information represented in a technical form as a part of technical writing.
After looking at the basic definition of technical writing, let’s move on to the main reasons why you should choose a career in technical writing.
Also, Read: Fundamentals of Technical Writing
Reasons to Pursue Career in Technical Writing
Here are some of the most notable benefits of choosing a career in technical writing:
It’s Creative Field
Most people think that technical writing is about writing documentation, and it is a tedious task. In general, it is not limited to text, but you need to communicate effectively through different mediums. Hence, technical writers get an option to write about images & graphics as well as video scripts and audio files.
Here, you get an opportunity to work on multiple types of projects. For instance, today you are writing a product description, and tomorrow you might get an opportunity to write about detailed video script. Moreover, you need to provide information to users and ensure that they connect with the product well.
Check out: Technical Communication- A New Throb in Writing Domain
Growing Demand
The demand for technical writing is great right now, and it will grow exponentially in the next few years. The reason being, more & more people worldwide are launching new tech products and services every year, and they require a technical writer to convey information to end-users.
Scope of Learning New Things Everyday
Technical writing involves knowing about various technologies & tools, and hence, you require an in-depth understanding of all. During the process of writing, you will learn a lot of things about a product or service a particular business is offering. Moreover, you will learn about upcoming updates about products and services.
You Don’t Require Technical Background
Even if you don’t belong to the tech field, you can enter into technical writing. Here, you only have to know essential details about a specific product/ service, apply your analytical skills, and be inspired to write about tech stuff.
Dive into this Guide to Technical Communication Skills
Generate Good Revenue
Technical writing is one of the most crucial jobs around the world. Depending on the city and the country you are doing a job, your salary will vary. In India, the average base salary of a technical writer is Rs 498,990/year.
You Don’t Require a Degree
You don’t require a fancy college degree like a Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts, etc., to enter the technical writing industry. If you have primary schooling and are passionate about technology, you can learn technical things and start your journey as a technical writer.
Why should you get a tech writing certification online?
Here are some of the most crucial reasons why you should get a tech writing certification online:
- If you are starting or want to gain better skills as a technical writer, then getting technical writing certification is one of the most suitable ways to go ahead.
- A certified technical writer will have more benefits and importance compared to non-certified technical writers.
- Technical writing is a broad field which offers specification in different areas such as writing tools, software platforms, living standards, etc.
- If you want to learn about the latest things running in the tech writing world, you should get a popular tech writing certification online.
After looking at the most important reasons to obtain a tech writing certification online, here we will walk you through some of the best places from where you can get a technical writing certification online.
1. Technical Writing Master Course
IIMSkills is a well-known institute from India that offers tech writing certification online. Apart from the technical writing master course, the institute provides various courses effective in the industry today. The primary mission of IIMSkills is to provide world-class education to people around the world at an affordable price. As of now, it has trained people across more than 35+ countries globally.
The technical writing course from IIMSkills is much similar to the content writing course that focuses on various factors involved in technical writing. Several benefits like flexible batch timing, lifetime access to learning material, and internship set it apart from other institutes in the market.
This certification is suitable for anyone who wants to upskills their technical writing skills or a new entrant in the technical field.
Course Curriculum
It is an extensive course that covers a vast number of topics. Here is what you will learn from this course.
- Basics of technical writing
- Flow Charts, block diagrams, and schematics with infographics
- Technical reports
- DDLC
- Discourse Writing
- API Documentation
- Proofreading and publishing
- User Manuals and data sheets, etc.
Key highlights of this Certification
- The course provides lifetime access to the Learning Management System.
- You will learn about various technical tools necessary in the industry.
- The students who register for this course get an opportunity to opt for an internship. On enrolling for the same, they can publish their first whitepaper or technical blog.
- You have to appear for an exam and get a specific score to obtain tech writing certification.
Cost: INR 14900+ 18% GST
Other courses at IIM SKILLS
2. One Week Technical Writer Certification
This course is offered by Technical Writing HQ, one of the leading institutes offering writing courses. Joshua Fetcher and his partner, Obaid Kahn has years of experience in the technical writing field, and they have curated the course with one mission, to help people break their fear of technical writing and excel their job.
Various professionals who have got certification from Technical Writing HQ are working at Fortune 500 companies worldwide.
Course Duration: One Week
Course Curriculum
It is an extensive technical writing course that teaches you the basics of a technical writer, how to ace up in interviews, and how to land a job as a technical writer. Here are some of the essential topics covered in the course:
- How to Implement Technical Writing Key Responsibilities
- How to Set Scope and Purpose of Your Documentation
- How to Analyze Your Audience
- How to Conduct Proper Research
- How to Structure and Design Your Sentences
- API Writing
- Whitepaper Writing
- Case Studies Writing and more.
Key Highlights of this certification
- The course offers self-paced learning.
- Learn about strategies, communication skills, and technical writing skills needed in the industry.
- Highly interactive quizzes and challenges to keep you hooked to the course and complete it.
- You will learn to write excellent quality documentation.
- It helps you build your technical writer resume and online presence.
- The course comes with lifetime access; hence, you can watch it as many times as you want.
Cost: $199
Also, Read: Best Tech Writer Certification Courses in India
3. Certified Professional Technical Communicator
The next tech writing certification online course on our list is Certified Professional Technical Communicator offered by the Society of Technical Communication (STC). It is yet another well-known institute worldwide offering three types of certification. These include CPTC Foundation, Practitioner, and Expert. Here, you have to pass a test to get the required certification.
The institute provides study material for the foundation course on the website; however, you need to purchase specific books to learn concepts and get other certifications.
Let’s have a look at each certification in detail:
Foundation: It is for beginners. By clearing the CPTC Foundation test, it’s evident that you have a thorough knowledge of the best practices of technical communication.
Practioner: It is the next stage in CPTC. Getting a CPTC Practioner Certificate ensures that you can quickly grasp and apply technical communication concepts, guidelines, and processes, which further helps you make various decisions.
Expert: Getting this certification ensures that you have extensive knowledge of technical communication. To get this certification, you need to apply for specific expert interviews and work products. There is no expert-level exam announced yet.
Key Highlights of the Certification
- It is one of the world’s most recognized technical writing certifications.
- Foundation Certification provides you with the basics of technical communication.
- The Practioner Certification ensures that you understand and practice things you have learned in real life.
- For getting the Expert Certification, you need to go through several expert interviews and work products.
- This certification ensures that you get in-depth knowledge of technical communication, which helps you transform your career.
Cost: The cost of each of the levels is different. However, before appearing in any of the exams, you need to become a member of STC. If you want to appear for the exam directly, then the cost is high.
To know more about this tech writing certification online, click here.
4. TechWriter Certification
TechWriter certification is a famous institute offering various technical writing certificates for individuals to grow in the tech writing field. They have collaborated with multiple accredited universities to provide the best technical certification programs.
Dr. John Reid and Dr. Kenneth Rainey are the two people behind TechWriter who have curated these courses for the workspace. There are a total of 3 different certificates that the institution is offering. Let’s look at them in detail:
Basic Certificate in Technical Writing: It is an instructor-led program specially created for people who don’t have enough experience in technical writing or advance their career in content writing or go towards a new path. You have to invest 90 hours in this program.
Certificate in Writing for Current Technical Writers, Editors, and Designers: It is also an intrusted-led program especially for those people who want to gain advanced skills in technical writing or go towards a new path with a corporate workspace. The duration of this course is three months.
Comprehensive Career Building Certificate in Technical Writing: It is created especially for the people already working in tech writing and anyone who wants to advance their careers. You have to invest three months in this program.
Course Curriculum
Based on the tech writing certification online you choose, you will learn different things. Let’s look at what you will learn from all these three certifications:
Basic Certificate in Technical Writing
By taking up this course, you will learn how to identify different forms of technical communications, conduct an audience analysis, craft appropriate documentation, review your content, and more.
Certificate in Writing for Current Technical Writers, Editors, and Designers
In this course, you will learn how to analyze the audience, conduct task analysis, list out the main things mentioned in technical communication, conduct testing of your documentation, etc.
Comprehensive Career Building Certificate in Technical Writing
On completing this course, you will be able to identify various things in writing, add graphics and modify them, learn technical terminologies, identify issues in grammar, and more.
Key Highlights of the Certification
- TechWriter offers three types of courses, basic, intermediate, and advanced.
- Industry-led experts deliver all the courses.
- To improve your technical writing skills, you get various assignments and quizzes in the course.
Cost: The cost of getting the basic certificate for technical writing is $975. Further, the cost of each certification is different. To know more about these technical writing certifications, visit this link.
5. Medical Writer Certified (MWC) by the American Medical Writer’s Association
This tech writing certification online is mainly targeted at people who want to make their career in medical science writing. Medical Writing Certification Commission (MWCC) is partnered with the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) and designed Medical Writer Certified (MWC).
The association consists of 4000 members in the US, Canada, and 30+ countries that dedicatedly work to deliver precise health and medical information to the users. To appear for the exam, you need to have a bachelor’s degree in any field plus two years of working experience in the medical communication field.
Exam Duration
The duration of the exam is 2.5 hours.
Key Highlights of the Certification
- Ensure to your employer or client that you have credibility and knowledge in medical writing.
- Display your dedication to professional development in the field of medical writing.
- You can open doors to new employment opportunities for yourself.
6. Coursera Technical Writing Certification Courses
Coursera is one of the leading eLearning platforms that has collaborated with 200+ universities & companies worldwide to deliver cost-effective and job-relevant courses for individuals and organizations.
As of now, there are more than 3,000+ online courses available on Coursera in varied specializations and disciplines.
The platform provides a vast number of courses to obtain tech writing certification online. Here, you can find courses from basic to intermediate to advance level. Out of these courses, Technical Writing by the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology is the best course you should look forward to enrolling.
Let’s look at the course duration and curriculum.
Course Duration:
Technical Writing by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology is of 19 hours.
Course Curriculum
The course is for intermediate level, which means people with technical writing basics can understand it well. This course is divided into four modules, each one focusing on the essentials of technical writing.
Key Highlights of the certification
- It provides self-paced learning so that you can complete it at your own pace.
- The course comes with various practice quizzes.
Cost: You can complete the course for free; however, you have to pay $29 to $100 per course to get the certificate.
Read more about Coursera Technical Writing Course
7. Udemy
Udemy is also a famous American massive open online course provider targeted at professional adults and students. Udemy was founded in the year 2008, and until now, there are more than 155K courses on various topics and available in 65 languages.
In order to obtain a tech writing certification online, you can take various courses on the platform. Out of all, we recommend the following courses that you can take on the platform to being great at technical writing.
Technical Writing: Master Your Writing Career
The course is created by Joseph Philips, who has years of experience in technical writing and has written various books for leading publications. It is specially targeted at beginners.
Course Duration: 5.5 hours
Course Curriculum: You will learn how to know your audience, write the book, polish your writing, and more.
Price of this course: Rs 3,200
Technical Writing: How to Write Software Documentation
The course is created by the JPDocu School of Technical Writing and targeted at all the people who want to learn about writing proper software documentation.
Course Duration: 12-Hours
Course Curriculum: Technical writing basics, Types of documentation along with examples, and more.
Price of this course: Rs 8,640
Udemy runs sales throughout the year by which you can get these courses at much lower prices.
Also, Read: Best Technical Writing Courses on Udemy
Conclusion
All the courses we have listed are well-recognized by various companies worldwide. Moreover, people getting tech writing certification online from these institutes have got a great job or have started their freelancing journey.
Whether you are a beginner or someone who wants to take a massive leap in your career, you can opt for any of the above certifications online. The selection of the certification course should be based on your budget, flexibility in the certification course, and your current level in technical writing.
Lastly, by getting a tech writing certification online and putting your effort into implementing things you have learned, you can indeed become a successful technical writer.
