Technical writing a short introduction

Rajmahendra Hegde
@rajmahendrar
Technical Writing
A Short Introduction
By three methods we may learn technical writing: First by education, which is noblest; second by methodology, which is easiest;
and third by planting your butt in a chair and pecking out the damn document, which is the bitterest – Andrew Plato

Agenda
●
What is Technical Writing
●
Technical Vs Creative Writing
●
Goal
●
Characteristics
●
Technical Writing Artifacts
●
Process of writing
●
Components
●
Elements of Style
●
Tools
●
Books to read

What is Technical Writing
●
A branch of Technical
Communication
●
Also, know as Business or
professional writing
●
Written for and about business,
industry or Product
●
The goal is to get the info from the
creators/researcher and plant into
users mind.
●
The technical writer needs
knowledge and skill to be able to
communicate their ideas
specifically and effectively.
●
User-centred approach – Educate
and make the user or reader who
like to know to understand easily

Technical Vs Creative Writing
●
Factual
●
Informative, instructional or
persuasive
●
Clear, precise and straight
forward
●
Objective
●
Specialized vocabulary
●
Fictional and imaginative
●
Entertaining, provocative and
Captivating
●
Artistic, Figurative, symbolic or
even vague
●
Subjective
●
Generalized vocabulary
The success of the documentation efforts lies in the users being able to correctly locate and use the
resolutions to their issues on time and retain that knowledge for later use ― Suyog Ketkar, The Write Stride

Goal
●
Usually written for business or product.
●
Address a specific audience with a purpose
●
Provide accurate, relevant, and useful
information
●
Helps to solve a problem or complete a task
●
Digest complex information with simple
passages
●
Calculations are inferred from results
●
No Drama share the information clearly and
straight forward
●
Recommendations are the logical outcome of
the Conclusions

Characteristics
●
Direct, Detail, Structured,
Informative, Concise, Sequential.,
Accurate.
●
average sentences length 15-20
words
●
Average paragraph length 2-4
sentences 15- words
●
Tone/voice is professional
●
100% accurate in information
ideas and presentation grammar
●
Visuals, graphics, diagram are
common
●
Clarity
●
Conciseness
●
Specific Audience
●
Specific Purpose
●
Accuracy
●
Correctness
●
Comprehensiveness
●
Accessibility

Technical Writing Artifacts
●
User guide
●
LaTeX
●
Online Help
●
Walk-through
●
Release Notes
●
Er rota
●
Comments and
●
Javadoc/Pydoc
●
Proposals
●
man pages
●
Functional/Design spec
●
System Requirements
●
Exec Summary
●
Packaging
●
Tech. Journals/ Blogs articles
●
Marketing material
●
interface spec
●
white papers
●
design specs
●
observation report
●
Training material
●
proposal
●
product comparison
●
Disaster recovery doc
●
And more...

Process of writing
●
Plan
– Who is your audience
– What they are searching for
– What you try to solve
●
Write
– Focused writing
– Standards to follow
●
Review
– Read your first draft
– Seek feedback from the technical community
●
Rewrite
– Sharpen your content
●
Publish
– Publish to the right platform, so your reader
find it
●
Maintain
– Update regularly and keep them up-to-date
●
Identify the purpose of writing the
document
●
Identify the target audience
●
Collect relevant information
●
Organize the information
●
Create an outline
●
Adhere to a specific style guide
●
Iterate the process of Review and
Rewrite till it gets into share

Components
●
Consider Audience
– Who will read
– What they like to know
– How they find this
– Scope
●
Develop Scope (Purpose)
– Inform
– Instruct
– Persuade
– Evaluate
●
Concise with your writing
– Clear
– Brief
– Simple

Elements of Style
●
Simple Sentences
●
Present tense, active voice
●
Gender Neutrality
●
Abbreviations and Acronyms at
first before you use
●
List, Tables, images
●
Side-notes, Figures and Tables
●
Cross-references
●
Footnotes and end-notes
●
Searchable
●
Diagram, wire-frames,
screenshots
●
Info graph

Tools
●
Microsoft Office
●
Frame Maker
●
RoboHelp
●
Adobe Acrobat
●
XML
●
And etc.
●
Markdown
●
Asciidoc
●
Wiki
●
GitHub Flavored Markdown
●
GitBook
●
And etc.
Technical writing is a continuous process of learning, carefully gathering, sifting,
organizing, and assessing, all while trying to craft something that makes sense for a user.
- Krista Van Laan, The Insider's Guide to Technical Writing

Regardless of the changes in technology, the market
for well-crafted messages will always have an
audience – Steve Burnett
Rajmahendra Hegde
@rajmahendrar
images courtesy - unsplash.com

Technical writing a short introduction

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