-: My name is Deja Studdard and I am a Technical Writer
with the Indiana Department of Transportation.
A technical writer is someone who writes
proposals or contracts and edits
and formats large documentation.
Basically, what will come across my desk
is things that focus on bridges,
on roadways, on roadwork,
anything going on within the state of Indiana.
Sometimes we just think about our little area
and where we are in Muncie or Indianapolis,
but it's anything that's going on
within the state of Indiana
is essentially what I'm writing about
that has anything to do with the roads.
The lifecycle is huge.
There are thousands of people that work for INDOT
that really make this one document happen,
but essentially what happens is
a planner will send it to the estimator
and the estimator will send their funding to me
and the funding essentially tells how much money
goes into the contract,
how much money they're willing to spend on the contract,
and then I have to verify
anything and everything that has been sent to me.
I have to check it,
I have to write some things up,
and then I will send it to the engineer
for that to be checked, as well.
I have a lot of information sent to me,
and essentially what I do is,
I assemble, and you have to research different things
in order to put it together.
It's an abundance of things
that you have to be able to put together.
You really have to pay attention to the numbers
and you really have to be able
to edit things that are sent to you from other people.
It can take days, it can take weeks,
because you have to contact the project manager
to ensure that what they want, exactly
is going into the project.
If it's a maintenance project,
or a traffic project,
so if it's something to do with a traffic light,
then those tend to be easier.
Maintenance, of course, will tend to be easier.
But if it's something like I-69,
that can take years.
One project can literally take months
and it can go through a reschedule process.
But generally speaking,
the process itself is several months long
by the time that I get it,
when I start working, it's gonna be a few weeks.