TECHNICAL WRITING

AN INTRODUCTION
DR. MUHAMMAD SAEED AKHTER
SIGNIFICANCE
An important aspect of our professional career
No exception for anyone the industrial and business
world
Consumption of as much as 68% of work time in
communication
Much of the communication be in written form
The present times be marked with communication
DEFINITION
Practical writing that people carry out as part of their jobs
TYPES
Professionals write:
Official and Business Letters
Memorandums
Reports
Projects
Proposals
Research work
ALLIED CONCEPTS
Communication
Medium
Document
Generate
Communication
Act of transmitting an idea from one person to another
The process of creating and sharing meaning in
informal conversation, group interaction or public
speaking
Participants
Sender: writer
Receiver: receiver or audience
Medium
Literal meaning: a thing in the middle
The means by which one conveys ideas to someone
else
Document
Generic term for a written object
Message in technical writing
Generate
To perform all the activities that result in a final
document
PURPOSES
To inform
To instruct
To persuade
CHARACTERISTICS
Specific audience
Objective language
Presentational organization
Visual aids
Specific Audience
Examples:
executives
Members of staff
Workers
Consumers
Others
Objective Language
Plain language
Terminology that the audience understands
No literary terms or expressions
No prompt to emotional, unusual or unreasonable
interpretations
Presentational Organization
Technical writing is presentational. (Hartley)
Employing devices to enable the reader to access
information at a glance
Using clear structure
Making the format easy to scan
Visual Aids
Graphs
Tables
Drawings