Writing Blog Content as Technical Writing

I have a couple of students who are looking to get experience in technical writing before they graduate. Good idea, right? Except they plan on answering ads for "content technical writer" positions which ask them to research and write original content for blogs. For each article they'll get paid $10-20.00.

My question is this: will such experience really do them any good?

After all, this site is a blog, and though I'm proud of all the hard work I've put into it, I wouldn't put it on my resume if I was looking for another job (well okay I would if I had a few thousand hits a day). So how valuable is such experience and is can it really be considered technical writing?

Let's take each of these questions in turn.

In regards to the first one, I can see good and bad elements to writing for blogs. In the first place, many are viewed by thousands of visitors. So if the article includes the "by" line, the potential for getting a name out there is quite good. This type of experience is also good for students to learn things like deadlines and critical assessment of their work. Although they're in school, deadlines and criticism in the workplace are often much harsher than the same in academia, where the trend is to support and help students, not bash them for a poorly written article. The research skills they use and learn will also be useful. As I found in my first professional jobs, being able to research is one of the most valuable skills a tech writer can have.

However, on the flip side are some real negatives. First of all, many would argue that irregardless of what the content consists, this type of writing is creative non-fiction. Writing content articles for most blogs is about using buzzwords and keywords so they can easily be found by search mechanisms (though I'm really bad about doing this). It's about making someone else money more than it is about informing an audience.

But if you use my general definition of technical writing (the practice of effectively relaying information to a specific audience) they in fact are practicing tech writing, just not the more traditional kind.

Another downfall is that the tools and methods used are not consistent with what is most often used in industry. This type of writing doesn't give one experience in FrameMaker or RoboHelp. It MIGHT give someone experience in some web-based tools and technologies but even this is doubtful. Most often writers will use blog-specific tools like Wordpress.

My advice to these students is to take these jobs if they like to write, research, and if they would like the extra money. But otherwise don't count on these types of jobs as "technical writing experience."