Technical Writing

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Technical Writing

• Definition
• Goals
• Writing Process

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What is Technical Writing?

• Technical writing introduces you to some of the
  most important aspects of writing in the world of
  science, technology, and business the kind of
  writing that scientists, nurses, doctors,
  computer specialists, government officials,
  engineers, and other people do as a
  part of their regular work.

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What is Technical Writing?

• The term technical refers to knowledge that is
  not widespread, that is more the territory of
  experts and specialists.
• Whatever your major is, you are developing an
  expertise, and whenever you try to write anything
  about your field, you are engaged in technical
  writing.

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What is Technical Writing?

• Technical communication can be written, oral, or
  visual.
• Technical writing is composed in and for the
  workplace.
• Technical writing is a significant factor in work
  experience for a variety of reasons.
• Technical writing serves valuable purposes in the
  workplace and often involves teamwork.

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Importance of Teamwork

• Business and industry have expectations about the
  results of teamwork.
• Business management philosophies depend upon
  teamwork.
• Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma
  (continuous improvement) programs encourage
  efficient teamwork.
• Strategies for successful collaboration can
  improve outcomes.

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What is the purpose of technical writing?

• Technical writing is the delivery of technical
  information to readers in a manner that is
  adapted to their needs, level of understanding,
  and background.
• Technical writing is intended to communicate to a
  specific audience, for a specific purpose.

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The Audience

• The audience element is so important that it is
  one of the cornerstones of technical writing.
• You are challenged to write about highly
  technical subjects but in a way that a beginnera
  non-specialistcould understand.

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Translating Technical Information

• In a world of rapid technological development,
  people are constantly falling behind and becoming
  technological illiterates.
• As a technical writer, you need to write about
  the area of specialization you know and plan to
  write about in such a way that even Granddad can
  understand.

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Goals of Effective Technical Writing

• Clarity
• Conciseness
• Accuracy
• Organization
• Ethics

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Effective Technical Writing Clarity

• Methods for developing ideas precisely
• An expressive essay can clarify the writers
  intent through emotional, impressionistic,
  connotative words (soon, many, several, etc.).
• An impressionistic word such as
  near will mean different things
  to different
  people which is okay in
  in an essay where the goal may
  be to convey a feeling.

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Effective Technical Writing Clarity

• The ultimate goal of effective technical writing
  is to say the same thing to every reader.
• Lets say I write instructional manuals for
  company manufacturing space heaters. If I write,
  
• Place the space heater near an open
  window,
• what will this mean to thousands of customers
  who purchase the machine?

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Effective Technical Writing Clarity

• One person may place the heater 6 feet from the
  window.
• Another reader will place the heater 6 inches
  from the window.
• As the writer, I have failed to
  communicate clearly.

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Effective Technical Writing Clarity

• Specify
• Provide specific detail
• Avoid vague words (some, recently)
• Answer reporters questions (who, what, where,
  when, why, how)

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Effective Technical Writing Clarity

• Avoid obscure words
• Use easily understood words
• Write to express, not to impress
• Write to communicate, not to confuse
• Write the way you speak
• aforementioned already discussed
• in lieu of instead of

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Effective Technical Writing Clarity

• Limit and/or define your use of abbreviations ,
  acronyms, and jargon.
• Define your terms parenthetically
• CIA (Cash in Advance)
• or
• Supply a separate glossary
• Alphabetized list of terms, followed by their
  definitions

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Effective Technical Writing Clarity

• Use the active versus the passive voice.
• Passive voice
• It was decided all employees will take a ten
  percent cut in pay.
• Unclear Who decided?
• Active The Board of Directors decided that all
  employees . . .
• Overtime is favored by hourly workers.
• Wordy
• Active Hourly workers favor overtime.

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Effective Technical Writing Conciseness

• Limit paragraph, word, and sentence length.
• A paragraph in a memo, letter, or short report
  should consist of
• No more than four to six typed lines or
• No more than fifty words.
• Fog index (sixth to eighth grade level)
• Strive for an average of 15 words per sentence
• No more than 5 multisyllabic words per 100 words

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Effective Technical Writing Conciseness

• Fog Index
• Count up to 100 words in successive sentences
• Divide words by number of sentences average
  number of words per sentence
• Count number of long words (three or more
  syllables) within sentences
• Dont count proper names (Christopher Columbus),
  long words created by combining shorter words
  (chairperson), or three syllable words created by
  ed or es endings (united).

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Effective Technical Writing Conciseness

• Use the meat cleaver theory of revision
• Cut the sentence in half or thirds
• Avoid shun words
• Avoid words ending in tion or sion
• Came to the conclusion concluded
• Avoid camouflaged words
• Make an amendment to amend

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Effective Technical Writing Conciseness

• Avoid the expletive pattern
• There is, are, was, were, will be
• It is, was
• There are three people who will work for Acme.
• Three people will work for Acme.
• Omit redundancies
• During the year of 1996
• During 1996

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Effective Technical Writing Conciseness

• Avoid wordy phrases
• In order to purchase to purchase
• Proofread for accuracy
• Consider ethics

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Effective Technical Writing Accuracy

• The importance of correct grammar and mechanics
• Grammatical or mechanical errors make writers
  look unprofessional and incompetent.

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Effective Technical Writing Accuracy

• Grammar is so important in technical writing that
  in a one page assignment
• 4 major grammatical errors F
• 3 major grammatical errors D
• 2 major grammatical errors C
• 1 major grammatical error B
• A means excellent which is defined as
  without flaw

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Effective Technical Writing Organization

• Methods for organizing
• Spatial
• General to Specific
• Chronological
• Mechanism Description
• Process Description
• Classification

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Effective Technical Writing Organization

• Methods for organizing
• Definition
• Comparison/Contrast
• More Important to Less Important
• Situation-Problem-Solution-Evaluation
• Cause-Effect

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Effective Technical Writing Ethics

• Ethics methods encouraging moral standards in
  technical writing
• Practical
• Legal
• Moral

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Effective Technical Writing Ethics

• General categories of ethics in communication
• Behavior towards colleagues, subordinates and
  others (plagiarism, harassment,
  malicious actions)
• Dealing with experimental subjects, interviewees,
  etc. (informed consent)
• Telling the truth (falsify data, misrepresent
  facts)
• Rhetoricchoosing your words (loaded words,
  discriminatory language, logical fallacies)

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Effective Technical Writing Process

• The writing process is effective . . . and easy.
• All that you need to do is three things
• Prewrite (about 25 percent of your time)
• Write (about 25 percent of your time)
• Rewrite (about 50 percent of your time)

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Effective Technical Writing Prewriting Techniques

• Reporters questions
• Mind mapping
• Brainstorming/listing
• Flowcharting
• Outlining
• Storyboarding

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Technical Writing

• Is important to success in business
• Lets you conduct business
• Takes time
• Costs the company
• Reflects your interpersonal communication skills
• Often involves teamwork

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Sources

• Society for Technical Communication
• Technical Writing - A Dalton Organizing
• Online Technical Writing Information
  Infrastructures Comparison
• Online Technical Writing