I’ve suggested in various venues that aspiring (and experienced) tech writers look into open-source projects to find projects they can use to build out their portfolio. In addition to making your portfolio a better place, working on civic-tech open-source projects has the extra advantage of helping to make the world a better place.
The follow-on question to this advice is, invariably, “how do I find projects that need documentation?”
Well from your lips to Twitter’s ears. I got this link to Code for America as a Christmas present in yesterday’s Twitter feed.
Get a fancy new computer for the holidays? You can code for America right now via the Civic Tech Issue Finder: https://t.co/fkrsnvyLf7
— Code for America (@codeforamerica) December 25, 2015
They describe how to query for civic-tech open-source projects that are looking for help. You can modify the search to specify keywords, such as documentation. Try it and see if you can find a project you could help.
Search for civic-tech open-source projects that need documentation
This is a live link, so the content will change, but as I write this, searching for documentation returned over 300 projects.
Maybe there’s some potential for a New Year’s resolution?