To: Prospective Employers of Scott Sutton

I tender this letter of recommendation on behalf of Mr. Scott Sutton, who recently served as a contract technical writer for my department. I underpin my endorsement with nine years' experience working as a technical writer, document designer, and product information specialist for several companies.

Mr. Sutton was hired by my immediate boss to work, under my direction, on an intense three-month software development project. This project is conducted annually and typically requires the generation of over one hundred different publications for customer and support audiences. As this year's project snowballed and the requirement set grew, we elected to retain Mr. Sutton for an additional six weeks.

Mr. Sutton's charter assignment was to produce instructional and reference documents, largely from template, but with a large amount of idiosyncratic formatting and editing by hand. Mr. Sutton developed each piece from its starting draft through publication (both print and PDF).

Mr. Sutton rapidly proved to be capable of handling the complex publication requirements. He learned our procedures without undue coaching and was soon working so efficiently that I also made him responsible for devising a hyper-linked procedure handbook for his own assignments, constructed as a small intranet cluster. For the site design, Mr. Sutton partly re-worked the notes I had drafted for his use before the project began, and partly conducted his own research and technical interviews, again with minimal direction. It was a rewarding sub-project for both of us.

Mr. Sutton showed proficiency with the myriad desktop publishing, communications, and file-management tools used for the project, and learned quickly those he had not encountered before this assignment. He works with a clear focus on his assignments and in every respect has a high degree of professionalism.

I am pleased to recommend Mr. Sutton, and I am confident he will have a long and rewarding career in the technical communication field.

Sincerely,

Erik W. Harris
Technical Writer III
Product Information Development Team