Writing for HVAC technicians

What's up everybody? It's Mike coming to you from my borrowed studio. I just wanted to share with you a few quick tips. Jennifer, of course, has put out the request that, hey, if you want to share on our HVAC Chicks Coalition blog, thoughts, tips, tricks, even more philosophical stuff behind what it is to be in the HVAC trade. If there's something on your mind, on your heart that you want to write, if you want to write something that is going to be helpful to other technicians and professionals in the trade, then we want to encourage you to share that. But here's the thing, a lot of us are mechanically inclined, but writing isn't really a thing that we've done very much of. So I've come to you with a few quick tips to help you along in your journey. If you want to write for the Coalition, submit those writings to HVAC Jennifer— excuse me, submit those to jennifer@skillcatapp.com via email. So first thing we want to understand when we're writing, we don't want to plagiarize. Okay, so obviously if you're writing something to where you're actually sharing data, information, provable facts about a thing, you want to make sure that if you cite sources or other people's work that you give them credit. Back when I was in college and grad school, I know that one thing that they taught and nailed into us was that You do not plagiarize. You may as well just go ahead and go move to the moon. You're not welcome to live on the Earth anymore if you commit plagiarization. And the thing is that I found out, it's really easy to quote somebody and not cite that source properly. Here's the thing. There are different standard ways of citing sources and stuff if you're quoting somebody, but you know, A blog isn't necessarily as formal as, say, an academic journal or something like that. You don't have to follow APA protocol, which I'm not even going to get into what that means. But what you do need to do is make sure that you're respecting the authorship of the person who has created those sources. So if you're going to quote Ty Brandeman in your writing, you should probably mention that, hey, Ty Branneman says, or, hey, I got this information from a video I watched from Ty Branneman. If you can, it would be really cool if you shared where that source is located. Hey, I read Craig Migliaccio's book on AC charge. Well, okay, so cite that book. Just mention that you read it from that book. It would be even better if you shared the page that came from. You know, and again, you don't have to be super formal about it, but just mention and give credit to the source of the information. The other thing that we want to make sure we're understanding is that we are not writing academically. And I think this is where the intimidation factor plays in. What Jennifer is asking for, what the coalition is asking for in writing, is That we just share what's on our heart. This is called editorial style writing. Editorial style writing is a crazy— or is a not really crazy academic way, but just a little bit fancier way of saying you're sharing your opinion. It's not necessarily proven fact. Maybe you have a favorite type of bar soap, and it's your favorite because Your grandmother used it, your mother used it, and you use it. You like that it makes you feel clean after you get out of the shower. But if I go to your grandma's house, maybe she found a different brand of soap on sale and now she's got a different type of soap in her shower. Are you a liar now? Can I prove that you're telling false information because you wrote about how you like this one brand of soap? No. No, that's not the point of editorial writing. The point of editorial writing is to share experiences, thoughts, and feelings about a particular thing. The goal of an editorial piece is that the reader is then going to go try for themselves. They're going to use what you wrote to help form their own conclusions. So when we're writing about, you know, like My best tip for doing a furnace maintenance in the fall. You are not expected to give an academic lecture on maintaining a furnace. You just share your best tips and tricks. There is really no pressure. For that matter, maybe you have been struggling with some self-confidence issues as you are out there in the trade and maybe you are the new guy. on the crew of— of an entire crew of people who all have a minimum of 30 years in the trade, and you want to share about your experiences as the new person, then share that. Talk about that. But that doesn't mean that your experience is somehow invalid. I had a boss who directly told me that I don't have enough experience, I don't know enough, and they've been in this trade for 30 years. Don't let that intimidate you. So the other thing that I want to share with you, the other tip that's important— by the way, these are not in order of importance, they're just in the order that I'm sharing them with you today, except for plagiarism, that's always the most important. But, you know, confidence. If you feel comfortable enough to share something with the rest of the group. We understand that you're not necessarily saying that you're an expert in this thing, but here's your point of view. Here's your experience, and that could be helpful to somebody out there. If it's your first day, if you just completed your first day as a technician in the field, you probably have something to share with somebody, and it might be helpful to them. So in this day and age, where you can get in front of a camera and share your stuff online, whether it be written, video, or audio. Have the courage to just go ahead and do that. Share your experience because it will probably benefit somebody else. So that's the other thing that I want to share with you guys, and my final point. That's just this. Have the heart in your— put your heart into your writing. There are a lot of topics related to HVAC and it's not all just air circulation, refrigerant flow, gas pressure. It's not all technical. Maybe while you're learning this stuff and you're growing, maybe Maybe you're just, you know, you've, you've figured out some ways to, or, or have struggled with some ways to devote enough time to your family when you're in the busy season, and maybe you want to write about that. Then, you know, that would be really, really helpful because you know what, that's hard for a lot of technicians. A lot of us want to be with our families, but if it's busy, you know, it's hard because we got to go out and work, and not everybody can do what we can do. So just Just put your heart and soul into it. If you feel like what you've written isn't good enough, the tip that I would give you is don't delete it or don't let that stop you from publishing it or putting it on the blog. Instead, reach out to some of the others here. Have somebody proofread your work. If it's important enough for you to write or to record or to share with the rest of us, then it probably would benefit somebody. But then it's also important enough for somebody else to maybe help you make sure that it's right. I've reached out to others in the group to proofread something or to go over some ideas for a video, and I've gone over some ideas— or rather, I've asked people to look at a video before I publish it to make sure that it looks right and that I don't sound like I'm— I'm a babbling fool, but the most important thing that you can do as a member of this coalition and as a member of our trade is to publish your stuff and share your information. That's going to make a big difference for everybody. If you're watching this video and if you made it this far, I want you to know you have something to share and contribute. We love our mentors online and on social media and our content creators, but the truth of the matter is they're regular folks just like us, just like me and you and everybody else. And you know, at the end of the day, we all have something to contribute. So let's continue building this community and do our part to elevate the HVAC community and to lift lift each other up and to help this be a better, stronger trade. So thank you all for watching, and I hope this was helpful. Have a great day. Bye for now.