Over the course of my house profession (as a citizen advocate since 1997 and as an expert since 2003), I’ve had the privilege of writing and enhancing many alternative sorts of paperwork, some extra attention-grabbing than others, however all a part of the house writing ecosphere, if there’s such a factor. At this time, I assumed I’d share among the paperwork you may encounter as a “house author.”
Citizen Advocacy
A whole lot of what citizen advocacy teams just like the Nationwide House Society (NSS), House Frontier Basis (SFF), or The Planetary Society do is educate the general public about specific points of house exercise after which advocate a selected perspective, ideally with out advocating for specific gamers in personal trade. The 501(c)(3) non-profit tax standing of such organizations is tied to advocating that form of view with out performing direct lobbying of elected officers.
Place Papers
Many non-profit citizen advocacy teams publish place papers concerning points of their specific matter of curiosity. These papers are then put distributed through magazines or web sites or put into the arms of legislative employees members (a.okay.a., “staffers”) through citizen lobbying campaigns, the place advocacy group members make appointments to talk with staffers or generally even a Senator or member of Congress about their problems with concern.
Place papers typically embrace an summary on the primary web page that summarizes the group’s perspective, then an extended model after that, possibly 5-10 pages lengthy. Examples of paperwork I contributed to may be discovered right here and right here.
In my view, such papers mix technical writing (discussing a technical matter), politics (arguing for a selected place inside a political course of), and advertising and marketing (utilizing messages that attraction to a focused viewers). You don’t wish to lie or shade the reality once you write such papers; as an alternative, you do wish to argue truthfully in your place utilizing what logical and moral arguments take advantage of sense in your given state of affairs.
Standard Articles and Opinion Editorials (Op-Eds)
Often high-profile members of an advocacy group, equivalent to a gaggle’s government director or chairperson of the board will submit or get invited to put in writing an article in a extra mainstream publication, equivalent to a newspaper or general-interest journal concerning the group’s views on a subject.
Articles are extra fact-based, explaining how a selected know-how works, in an effort to coach the general public about it. Opinion editorials or “op-eds” are extra specific in advocating for a selected perspective, equivalent to calling for Congress or the President to help or not help a selected program or technological improvement.
In each varieties of articles, you might be prone to work as a part of a staff, incorporating inputs from a number of sources (together with your individual, in the event you’re fortunate) from the individual whose identify will go on the submittal or the members of a devoted coverage committee. Once more, factual articles are extra simple of their presentation since you’re doing what you may to curiosity the general public a couple of new know-how or warning them in regards to the risks of one other, purposely or by means of misuse. You wish to have interaction the reader, however you’re not making any direct calls to motion. An op-ed will name on voters or their elected officers to take a selected motion for or towards a given proposal.
Skilled
“Visionary,” Ahead-Wanting Statements, and Advertising and marketing
As an increasing number of personal firms kind to create new space-related services, every of them should make some effort to set themselves other than their opponents. Simply as a place to begin, you may take a look at how the three best-known billionaire-funded house firms–Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic–describe themselves:
“Blue Origin was based with a imaginative and prescient of tens of millions of individuals residing and dealing in house for the good thing about Earth. Blue Origin envisions a time when folks can faucet into the limitless sources of house and allow the motion of damaging industries into house to protect Earth, humanity’s blue origin.”
“SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches the world’s most superior rockets and spacecraft”
“[Virgin Galactic is] the world’s first business spaceline, and our objective is to attach folks throughout the globe to the love, surprise and awe created by house journey.”
Clearly you solely have to put in writing that form of assertion as soon as, however even creating these easy “imaginative and prescient” or “mission” statements can take some time, as you’re employed with the founder(s) to clarify the corporate’s objective(s) clearly and elegantly. Each assertion by the corporate, from speeches by the CEO to advertising and marketing collateral to “forward-looking” statements to stockholders or inner staff members, will probably be pushed by that major articulation of the corporate’s philosophy. In brief, they form the angle, language, and tradition of the corporate.
Technical Documentation
Within the house trade, documentation is used most frequently to assist technicians manufacture, assemble, take a look at, function, or restore a selected piece of {hardware} or software program. This work is usually written by working towards engineers or different technically oriented individuals who have hands-on expertise with the product in query. It’s not the prettiest writing, however it will get the purpose throughout and helps get work performed. As a writing man (born English main), I often don’t get jobs like this as a result of the group seeking to rent a documentation author needs somebody who can do the work. That, my buddies, is just not me.
Compliance Paperwork
The majority of technical writing that I’ve performed for the house enterprise consists of compliance paperwork. These are plans demonstrating to the launch authorities–NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the U.S. House Pressure, simply to call three–that your automobile and the processes used to make it are secure for folks and property. NASA, as an illustration, has an extended checklist of paperwork that information the constructing and working of launch autos (rockets) and spacecraft (satellites, human-crewed autos, and different payloads).
A number of the paperwork a launch automobile supplier–anybody from United Launch Alliance to SpaceX to Rocket Lab–has to offer to reply the problem of presidency paperwork:
Mission Assurance Implementation Plan (MAIP)
Techniques Engineering Administration Plan (SEMP)
Missile System Prelaunch Security Package deal (MSPSP)
Software program Security Evaluation
EEE Elements Management Plan
Materials and Processes (M&P) Choice, Management, and Implementation Plan
Idea of Operations (ConOps)
Mishap Preparedness & Contingency Plan
Elements Stress Evaluation
Software program Assurance Plan
Orbital Particles Evaluation Report and Finish of Mission Plan
Why are there all these paperwork? If you happen to’ve ever watched the film The Proper Stuff, you may recall a sequence the place a bunch of rockets blow up. It wasn’t simply embarrassing for the nation, it was irritating for the engineers and technicians constructing and (not) launching the rockets. What the parents on the (then) U.S. Air Pressure and NASA discovered is that as a result of house launch was so troublesome and harmful, all the things needed to be watched and executed rigorously. A fantastic historical past of this course of may be present in The Secret of Apollo: Techniques Administration in American and European House Applications, which explains how lots of completely different high quality management processes needed to be put in place to make sure that our rockets wouldn’t blow up. A generally quoted staying of German rocket man Wernher von Braun at Marshall House Flight Middle was, “We will lick gravity, however generally the paperwork is overwhelming.” As a technical author, your job is to make sure the engineers have their processes so as in order that the rockets don’t go increase. It’s unlikely that your specific phrases will save a life, however they’ll nonetheless assist somebody from making a careless mistake.
So when folks say, “You’re employed for NASA? That have to be so thrilling!” I’ve to nod and say, “It depends upon the day.” Some varieties of writing are extra thrilling than others, however they’re all essential, and most of the time the engineers will flip to a author and say, “Do one thing with this.” Go forth and do good issues.
