According to the U.S. BUREAU OF LABOUR & STATISTICS’ 23 report, the job growth for technical writers will grow up to 6% around the world by 2031. The report further assured that there will be 5400 job opportunities for freshers each year. Yet, fresh graduates should grab technical writing courses in France for their secure future. The technical writing courses in France cover vast industries like aerospace, banking, pharmaceuticals, and education; therefore, there won’t be any time when you are without a job. In this article, I will cover institutes for learning technical writing courses in France with the course module eligibility and other aspects. To know more, scroll down slowly.
1. IIM SKILLS
IIM SKILLS is an Edutech Indian startup company that is Delhi-based. However, they offer their specialized training around the world. They offer master technical writing courses in France for one month and another one-month non-paid online internship to forge your skills.
Cost: 14900 INR without tax
Duration: 2 months
Technical Writing Course Syllabus:
- Introduction: It is a writing skillset with technical subject matters intended to solve a user’s technological difficulty. There are many technical writing passages like software and consumer products documentation, refrigerator instructions, and HR policies for corporate houses. A tech writer also works in engineering, medical, legal, and science fields. They also write proposals for grants in universities.
- They deliver EPUB & PDF manuals, online mobile version help guides, tutorial reference guides, training release manuals for software, installation/troubleshooting guides, software-API reference documents, and script writing for video & podcast series.
- There are specific checklists for translating the content with internal style guides like HIPAA, FDA, Oxley, etc. The content should be widely accessible with simple language and terminologies.
- Writing techniques for creating content: A writer should research the topics for audience analysis. But how? The answer is content planning with flowcharts and mindmaps. The broad content needs to be presented in schematic block diagrams. The purpose of the content is justified with infographics.
- Technical reports are made for software, service, and common manufacturing plants.
- Whitepapers: It is a formal statement for how a project works. A white paper has goals, timelines, strategy, and value proposition. The papers bring some value to the market as a tokenomics element. It is valuable because it gives you the logic for your investment. A user will judge whether it brings a solution to a market by looking at these documents. A white paper can also be merged with a technical journal for a field-oriented view as periodical and serial publications for industry-specific news.
- The life cycle of a document: It is the steps for effortlessly recording any document-producing procedure for user acceptance. It contains six stages: analysis, design, development, review, publishing, and maintenance. Document version management for several drafts is an essential part of document history.
- A learner should use several tools for reviewing and publishing the document, like Grammarly, Quillbot, Copyscape, and Smallseo tools.
- Api writing: This a connecting code for two software. Without API documents, a developer can’t make integration with various software. The API document should include an overview of the concept, step-by-step tutorials for integrations, examples of calls and error handling, and a glossary for different terms in a document.
- The course includes medical journal writing, datasheet formation, factsheet writing, and patent writing modules.
- At last, a candidate will learn several industry-based case studies.
Tools for technical writing courses in France:
- Visio
- Project
- Git
- Scribus
- Canva
- Powerpoint
Eligibility: Anyone with a bachelor’s degree can join the course. Although no other qualification is required, a student should be a tech enthusiast because the course deals with technology.
2. Google’s Technical Writing Course
This is our second option for technical writing courses in France. It is one of the technical writing courses in France meant for engineers like software developers, students of computer science, and product engineers. It is an excellent option for those keen on the writing side of tech writing but not with the technological part because it is already assumed that you are good with technologies from your branch. The course stands in the middle between the creator of the technology and the end user.
Fees: Free
Duration: Hybrid (recorded+online class)
Course 1 syllabus
- English Grammar learning (pronouns, voices, abbreviations, and acronyms)
- Voice change
- How to make a sentence clear in meaning and engaging to the reader
- Strategies to shorten a long sentence
- Listing differences ( Bullet vs. Number)
- How to make a list
- How to write an effective sentence at the start of every paragraph
- One paragraph contains one idea-concept
- Introduction of the critical points of a document in the lead sentences of the article.
- Audience identification
- Determination of audience’s knowledge and learning objective
- What is the knowledge curse?
- Idioms learning
- Goal/scope writing of the article to the target audience
- Paragraph section breaking tips with long and complex topics
- Use of Punctuation: semicolons, colons, commas, dashes & parentheses
- Beginner’s markdown language
Google also has three other technical writing courses in France. I will discuss them as well in the coming section.
Course 2:
Eligibility: A student must complete course one before attaining this course.
Syllabus:
- How to make drafting effectively
- Mistake identification strategies in a writing passage
- Document’s scope writing with any prerequisite
- Managing and organizing a large paper with long facts and data
- Caption writing
- Density illustration of information in a document
- Illustration of a picture through words
- Technical writing phenomena
- Code creation in an article
- Types of documents
- Easy description process for anything
- Tutorial writing for the audience in a simple language
Course 3 Syllabus:
This is a one-and-a-half-hour workshop for the learner.
- Inclusive design- It is an impact of design on human attitude by giving a role to tech drawing.
- Alt text- It is a non-text-element-like image, graph equivalent to text. It serves three purposes as
❖ Smooth readability to readers
❖ Assigning readability to search engines
❖ Referring to the context in the case of failed image loading
Alt text is essential in many instances, such as
➔ Putting the most important information first
➔ Use of punctuation in case of more than one sentence in alt text
➔ Easy vocabulary use
➔ No extra words for images
➔ No details are required for the images
➔ It is contextual
- Colour contrast grading for online and offline publication
- Diagram creation with minimum elements
- Error detection in the final copy
Course 4 syllabus: It is a self-study module for Error messages.
- Failure report significance
- Error handling style guide for programming languages like C++, Python, Javascript, and Java
- API error handling: RPC code, cloud API designing
- Broken service error
- Connection drop over multiple connected networks
- Status mismatching between frontend and back end
- Permission authorization in a markup language
- Assigning numerical values to errors for easy understanding to the developer
- Immediate escalation of the error to the user
3. Coursera
If you are looking for short-term technical writing courses in France, Coursera is one of the options. The fee for the course is volatile therefore you should check for your own. The University of Colorado Boulder organizes this course.
Duration: 3 months
Syllabus:
- Comparison of successful communication
- Contrast of unsuccessful communication
- Synthesized methods of organizational communication
- Article writing for educated clients
- Research for hot topics for readers of a company
- Storytelling methods
- Voice modulation for non-verbal interaction among audiences
- Slides creation for presentation to corporate houses with terminologies
- Grammar lessons: word choices for correct sentences, paragraph structure, hyphenation, capitalization, and punctuation marks.
- Letter and application creation without jargon
- Proofreading for letters and emails
- Research proposal writing with mental picture and clear words
- Executive summary writing with data and tone for the audience
4. Udemy
Udemy is the first choice for those who want video-based technical writing courses in France with self-paced learning modules with a certification. The duration and price depend on the course you choose in your region. I am mentioning here a few classes only.
- Software Documentation by JPDocu School of Technical Writing
Software documentation is part of the software package for customer usability, developers execution, and after-sales support. It is two types: user documentation and developer documentation.
- Designed Manuals: These manuals are written in a logically organized-follow format. The language is lucid with visual graphics. Sometimes, manuals include links for further resources.
- Quick Start Guide: This is the step-by-step instruction for setting up software quickly.
- Github Usage: Github is a cloud-based open-source community for coding. Anybody can edit and modify the code if necessary. It allows collaboration among developers around the world to exchange solutions. It is a VCS (Version Control System) because it records all the changes in a file so that all members of a team work with an updated file. It addresses the two issues in technical writing.
❖ How to maintain workflow visibility and avoid data redundancy
❖ How to hire a developer
- The course also deals with Graphic addition in software documentation with the help of PowerPoint, Canva, and diagram.net
- Information Architecture: It refers to the structure and orientation of information in any digital space. It is a single thread of users, contents, and backgrounds. An information architecture is essential to judge the audience of a tech writer because people need various information in various ways. One should focus on the visual hierarchy to build information architecture, which means making patterns by grouping some aspects as it helps the reader to scan a document with a defined relation.
- How to maintain high-quality software research:
★ Detailed researched
★ Answering people’s queries with the result
★ The visual framework of the document
★ Grammar correction with a formal tone
★ Translation of the composition according to the location
- DITA XML writing by JPDocu School of Technical Writing
Dita is a unique structure for tech content for optimizing and publishing in a digital area because it is intelligible for applications and systems. Dita contents are written as component parts arranged in maps because they are stored in a component content management system(CCMS). The CCMS approves the users for component-level publication of the content. Further modules are mentioned below.
- Steps to DITA writing
- DITA elements: DITA has two components: a topic and a map. A topic answers a single question in a chunk, like a self-contained module. The issues are the building blocks of a large document addressing concepts, tasks, and references. While talking about a DITA map, think as it is a Map that a traveler uses for traveling to an unknown location. It gives purpose and order to a pile of topics.
- Content reuse in DITA: It is not a copy-pasting of an article, but it is the reference of the original without replacing it.
- Creating Images in the DITA framework for scalability and control
- DITA linking
- Technical Writer 101 by Joseph Okon
It is one of the highest-rated technical writing courses in France on Udemy, with 4.8 out of 5
Syllabus:
- Introduction
❖ Job roles of Technical writers like API integration writers, whitepaper-job application makers, and business proposal writers. Their primary responsibility is subject and topic research fact, organizing and developing the content guidelines.
❖ Technical writers require specific skills to develop, like tech management skills for software. Practical knowledge is beneficial because, For example, a computer science writer should know about cybersecurity in information technology to write an article about the topic. The critical point to a tech writer is the easy understandability of the article to everybody. This is why tech writers need excellent communication to transfer knowledge without any hiccups and having to resort to complex content. Technical writers must provide the optimal solution for each user’s pain points and content. If a tech writer wants his views to be adopted, he should understand which information is most important to the user instead of adding details to the document in the long run. Some projects may require writers to create multiple documents on the same topic. Still, the ability to select one good technical knowledge source comes in for readers of varying proficiency levels. Writers must know which source has ample information to benefit all readers and how to spin the content to suit beginner and advanced readers.
- Tone and style for technical writing
- Portfolio building of a tech writer
- Mistake to avoid in a first job
5. ECT
ECT is my fifth option for the technical writing courses in France. It is a Delhi-based startup institute in India. They provide a Govt. of India-recognized certificate at the end of training. They provide 12 assignments throughout the training.
Course Duration: 3 months
Cost:20000 INR (with tax)
Syllabus:
- Introduction: Definition, types, roles, and lifecycle for a document
- Grammatical styling in technical writing
- Information Architecture
- GitHub Markdown language
- XML learning: It stands for Extensible Markup Language. A machine can never understand textual information, but then a question arises about how two devices or apps communicate with themselves. In that case, we need well-formatted data which is synthetical and common rule-based. It is the XML language. It is a markup language because we use tags and marks, but XML is not predefined or limited like HTML. XML is used to store data and share data between the two applications. The Worldwide Web consortium specifies the data transportation rules. XML file is both human and machine-readable
- JSON learning: A Javascript object notation stores and transports data from a web server to clients. It is also used for storing user submission forms. JSON validates email addresses. JavaScript programs can convert JSON data into native JavaScript objects without parsing or serializing the information despite its strong association with JavaScript. JSON is compatible with other programming languages and systems, such as C++, PHP, Python, and Ruby.
- DITA training
- MadCap Flare Software Learning: It is an XHTML-based authoring tool that helps write technical writing as user guides, help systems, knowledge bases, and manuals.
- API document writing
- Agile Documentation: It is a document that lets an organization know if a project is worth time and resources such as money. It is done in the senior-level management team of a business. Then comes the project chart, where high-level scope and functionality are mentioned with diagrams presentation.
- CV writing, Portfolio building, Interview Preparation
6. Strasbourg University
The university provides an online master’s degree in technical writing courses in France. The program lasts from 12 to 24 months, depending on the choice.
Mode of class: online with two optional campus meetings
Fees: 6,480 euros for 1-year option & 8,424 euros for other extended options. These fees include Windows software licenses, seminars, exams, study materials, and degrees.
Eligibility: Anyone with four -year bachelor’s degree can do this course. Although no language proficiency is required for this course, a student must have a strong English language understanding. If you don’t have an academic degree, you can opt for this course after giving them an in-house application.
Modules
❖ Web languages
- Markup Language: XHTML, HTML, and XML
- Style sheet language: CSS, XML, and XSL
- Programming Languages: JavaScript, MySQL & PHP
❖ Technical information design & publishing
❖ Tools learning, server configuration & communication
❖ User experience designing in Adobe Cloud
❖ Language learning for writing with SEO
❖ Evaluation of a project for management
❖ Graphical localization for application
❖ Web-based technology learning like Iot
❖ Academic research writing for thesis
Recommended Reads:
- Online Technical Writing Courses
- Technical Writing Courses in Vietnam
- Technical Writing Courses in Ghana
- Technical Writing Courses in Vizag
- Technical Writing Courses in Egypt
- Technical Writing Courses in Bangladesh
7. Wisconsin Eau Claire University
This university provides basic training in technical writing courses in France. The classes are delivered online.
Duration: 90 hours
Fees: 975 USD
Modules:
- Editing technical documents through user feedback
- Grammar lessons: vocabulary, phrase correction, sentence simplification
- Designing the layouts for a paper with charts, tables & graphics
- Project publication planning
- Failures evaluation for projects
8. STC
Society for Technical Communication(STC) offers three types of technical writing courses in France. The courses are categorized into foundation, practitioner, and expert categories. I am elaborating on these categories below.
Foundation Certificate
It is a starting step for working professionals with two years of experience in the technical writing domain.
Cost: $297 (for members), $594 (nonmembers). Duration: 40 minutes with closed book test
Professional Level-2 Certificate
The second level course is for professionals having 2-5 years of experience, but it is not mandatory. A candidate must have the foundation course before opting for this one.
Cost: $ 418 (for members), $710 (nonmembers), Duration: 100 minutes with text.
Expert Level 3 certificate
The course is still in the development phase. The course is based on document submission and presentation to the expert panel. You have to do foundation and professional certification before opting for this one. This advanced course demands 5 to 10 years of domain experience from the candidate. The course fees and duration will be known after its publication.
Modules for Foundation & Expert level:
➔ Workplace communication
➔ Communication in the reader’s mode
➔ Team Management
➔ Ethical Challenges
➔ Email, Letter & Memo
➔ Description, Specification writing
➔ Instructional document writing
➔ Proposal Formulation
➔ Reports writing
➔ Research & Strategic Planning
➔ Customer Persuasion
➔ Draft organization
➔ Writing style
➔ Designing document
➔ Editing after revision
➔ Client communication with PPT presentation
➔ Writing for a website
➔ Grammar- Punctuation lesson
➔ English Language Guides as a second language
➔ APA Documentation Style
9. Oregon State University’s Tech Writing Course
Cost: 2560 USD for all six courses, 560 USD for individual courses
Six courses are described below briefly.
- The first-course deals with the grammatical aspects of tech writing. It is in self-paced mode.
- The second course deals with manual writing with detailed research and layout designing for an end user.
- The third course deals with legal document writing with flowcharts, feedback, and notes.
- The fourth course deals with workflows, file storage systems, single sourcing, document structure, and schedules.
- The fifth course deals with user experiences in a document like accessibility, targeting audiences, user texting, and FAQ.
- The last course deals with portfolio creation.
All the five courses mentioned above have a duration of a month only.
10. UC San Diego
They provide technical writing professional certification to the students with several elective papers.
Cost: 5250 USD
Duration: 1.5 to 2 years
Mode of class: online
Syllabus:
- Technical communication basics
- Tools of grammar editing
- Critical thinking for document creation
- The design element of documents
Tools to be mastered
➔ Indesign
➔ Illustrator
➔ Photoshop
➔ Word
➔ Acrobat
➔ Creative Cloud
11. Henry Harvin
Henry Harvin is a well-known name for technical writing courses in France. They provide a certificate course and a post-graduation diploma course in digital writing. I will discuss the certificate course now, but you can check their post-graduation diploma course on their website.
Duration:36 hours
Fees:15750 INR
Syllabus:
➔ Introduction class
➔ Document drafting process with information
➔ How to write a technical document
➔ Grammar session
➔ Tools learning: Photoshop, Snag IT, Microsoft Word, Visio, RoboHelp, PowerPoint, etc.
➔ Tech-document components: TOC, INDEX, LOF
➔ Writing tips: Voice change, Participles, Punctuation, Anthropomorphism, Nouns, Variance
➔ Template creation
➔ Document formats: API documentation, SDK Documentation, Release Note, User Guide, Manual, URD
➔ Overview of DITA-XML tools
FAQs: Technical Writing Courses in France
1. How long does it take to become a technical writer?
According to the U.S. BUREAU OF LABOUR & STATISTICS, it takes 3 to 5 years to be an expert professional, but the number of tasks a writer does plays a key role here.
2. What is technical writing?
From a writer’s point of view, technical writing is a practice of writing about science, digital, and technological content in straightforward words in an easy, digestible manner. It is more about easy expressions than complex terminologies. For example, some medical terminologies are difficult for an educated layman, yet tech writers break them down in day-to-day phenomena. For your reference, several industries hire tech writers, like software industries, cybersecurity, engineering, and finance.
3. Why does someone hire a technical writer?
It is fascinating because it summarizes several questions in a single question. I am extending the question for your better understanding: Why do you hire a tech writer instead of a content writer? I am giving now an example. Suppose you have had pain in your back for the past one week. You visited a doctor who told you you have osteoporosis, so he referred you to an orthopedic. You visited the doctor. After one month, you are living a healthy life.
Now, come to this question: A content writer mainly works with a digital marketing team to write business-oriented content like copies, social media, and SEO content. He may have a technical understanding, but he needs to be habituated to tech writing for regular purposes; therefore, a dedicated tech writer can help with expertise, language, and sound understanding with whitepapers, API documentation, software user guides, and medical writings.
4. What do I need to become a technical writer?
It is a comprehensive question, although I am answering it briefly.
❖ Get Training: First, you should know how to write any technical document. Therefore, you should join a trainer-led course because we make mistakes and you need someone to hold your hand.
❖ Do Internships for more advanced learning. You learn more when you are on jobs with proper feedback.
❖ The next step is portfolio development with an experience certificate for grabbing a job opportunity.
❖ You have to do freelancing or a full-time job to acquire years of experience.
❖ Now, you are a successful technical writer with your expert knowledge.
Conclusions
Technical writing demands crucial research skills and a scientific understanding of the writer because you need to go deep into the topic to describe a complex principle very quickly. It is a great field, and you are an enthusiastic tech-science person. Although It doesn’t require an understanding of programming languages or mathematics, a basic understanding is more than enough. If you are that kind of person, your income is highly limited in the industry, but payment is not unlimited.