Benefits of Technical Writing
Writing has many benefits, and this is not an exhaustive list. I also believe benefits can be different for different people. I’ll explain here ways in which writing has been beneficial to me.
1. You validate existing knowledge
It’s one thing to learn something. It’s another thing to teach that thing. I see teaching as a way to retain the knowledge you have on something, as well as validate it. By validation, I mean this:
When you learn something, how sure are you that you really know it? One way can be by building projects with that knowledge. Another way, is by teaching someone else.
By writing on that thing, you’re building on that knowledge.
2. You learn new things you never knew before
From the outside view, it’s easy to imagine that when you write about something, it’s because you know it already and you don’t get any new knowledge. But really, it’s more than that.
Especially during research, there are some articles one would want to write and would be required to do some research online on that topic to ensure that the things they’re writing about are correct. In the process of that research, you may discover new things.
I’ve found myself writing articles, and in the middle of writing them, something I believed I knew became unclear. Ongoing online, I learned new things I didn’t know before the article. An excellent example of this is The DOM. Before writing it, I didn’t know as much as I did after writing it. I did some research while writing which made the whole DOM concept clearer for me to teach.
3. You get better at writing and grammar
There are so many ways to get better at writing. One way could be by reading books on writing; another could be courses, training or things like that. Another method that has worked for me is writing. By continuously expressing myself the way I can at a specific moment, I got better at more creative forms of expression.
When I review some of the articles I wrote in my early years, I can clearly see how much I’ve grown. Those years, I’d jam words and paragraphs together that make the article unclear, but now, I’m able to express myself in a more digestible way.
If you want to get better at writing, start writing. Do it continuously. Also, prioritize feedback from friends. You can go through article courses too. And that’s how you grow.
4. You advance your career
Writing has a very significant impact on your career. It opens up more job opportunities for you and gives you more experience in the particular field/niche that you write about.
As a frontend developer who started writing, I understood how JavaScript worked under the hood, how React hooks work, and how the DOM works, to name a few. In a bid to teach the basics I knew, and the research it required, I had better knowledge of things.
5. You’re adding value to the community
Writing for me, is a great way to add value to the community. It fills me with joy and gives me a sense of fulfillment when I see people learning from what I write about (through public/private appreciation feedback). If you’re the kind of person who would love to contribute one way or the other, writing is one way.
I share my experience with life and tech through writing (and videos—content generally), and many people who relate with it can easily pick lessons or be motivated/inspired.
6. Writing improves your financial power
You probably knew this already, and that’s why I had it as the last point : )
Writing strengthens your financial power. In 2020, while looking for full-time roles, I got rejections often, but most of the time, I wasn’t depressed. The reason for this was I had a growing writing career that helped me take care of my financial responsibilities. If I probably didn’t have this, I guess rejections would have hit me more than they did.
Many organizations value writers in small and LARGE ways. For example, LogRocket, as of the time of writing, rewards writers with $350. Some organizations do lower, some very lower, and some even higher. Of course, they are not so easy to get into, but you can get in with the required experience and relevant article ideas you have.
Writing has also helped me connect with many people in the tech space. I’ve made friends and broadened my network.
Conclusion
As I stated earlier, this is not an exhaustive list. There are many benefits which are relative to different people. But I believe that the advantages mentioned above are the same on a large scale.