I’ve written a ton of documentation over the last twenty years and developed some cool e-learning courses.

And most of it is proprietary.

I’ve respected my clients’ wishes and kept them off my public web site. However, if you contact me personally I can show you samples that my clients have okay-ed for private display.

Here are some open samples that I can display publicly:

Writing

AI – Preparing Content for AI: A Guide for Technical Writers

I wrote this guide to advise my company on structuring and writing our internal content so that it could be easily referenced by our new AI chatbots. I asked Google Gemini to write the first draft , and then I edited, fact-checked, and worked with developers to ensure its guidance enabled accurate responses from the chatbots.

AI is fantastic for first drafts and rote tasks, but “human in the loop” is more critical than ever to ensure quality over slop.

API Documentation – Boardgames

I’ve worked with developers and product managers to document REST APIs. REST APIs consist of requests to and responses from a web server, essentially enabling two systems to talk to each other. I created a “boardgames” API to demonstrate what I typically include in my API documentation.

By the way, see Tom Johnson’s excellent Documenting APIs course for a high-level primer.

Blog Posts – robsteiner.net

Some of my favorite blog posts from my own web site. Opinionated but entertaining. Tools: WordPress.

Book Reviews – New Podler Review of Books

I wrote book reviews for David Drazul on the New Podler Review site for several years. Just like technical documentation, book reviews also have a structure that makes them credible and entertaining. See if you can spot it in these samples.

Fiction – Amazon Author Profile

I’ve written and published nine novels (and counting), so I know how to use “story” to write informative yet entertaining materials where appropriate.

Magazine Article – Telecommuting: Eight Tips for Success

Tips and tricks for the successful telecommuter in Intercom magazine, published by the Society for Technical Communication.

Magazine Article – The What, Why, How, and Where of DITA

An introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), an XML-based architecture designed to organize and present technical content. Published in Intercom by the Society for Technical Communication.

Release Notes – Core Product 1.5

My product release notes briefly explain new features and any bug fixes. They provide links to related documentation and guidance on where to go for help with the new features.

Style Guide – Writing for the Web

Written for a team of technical writers to ensure the team’s web content had a consistent style, look, and feel.

Web Articles – DemandMedia

Some technical articles I wrote that were bought by Demand Media. They had a strict style and format that writers had to follow.

Web Article – HTML5 Overview

What’s the best way to learn something new? Try teaching it to someone else. That’s the strategy I took while writing this article, which I eventually sold to a technical blog.

E-learning

Responsive E-learning – The Novels of Rob Steiner

Responsive e-learning ensures that a single version of a course provides a viewing experience optimized for all devices, from desktop to tablet to smart phones. Adapt is a free, open-source e-learning development tool that excels at this. If you’re viewing this sample on a desktop, adjust your browser size to see what I mean. And forgive my shameless self-promotion.

Video Production

Book Trailer – Muses of Roma

I produced this small book trailer video to promote my novel, MUSES OF ROMA, from selecting the images and music to the video editing. Tools: PhotoShop, iMovie.