Introduction to lesson 2

At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:

 Identify the different types of technical writing;
 Reflect on the given example of technical document;
 Enumerate the qualities of technical communicator; and 
 Recognize the basic principles of good technical writing
 
INTRODUCTION
                              
In the first week of your module, it was clearly discussed what technical communication is. So, we
will just have a recap of its definition. When we say technical writing, it is a form of written
communication – especially in engineering and other applied sciences in – which scientific,
business, and legal ideas, concepts, and data are presented in an objective, accurate, and logical
manner. Is it also defined as the practice of documenting processes, such as software manuals or
instructional materials. In short, technical writing is a type of writing where the author is writing
about a particular subject that requires direction, instruction, or explanation. With the different
definitions of Technical Writing, we are going to discuss the Types of Writings in Technical
Professions

Types of Technical Writing

TYPES OF TECHNICAL WRITINGS

1. Traditional Technical Writing- While traditional technical writing sounds broad, pieces of content
within this category are specifically written for professional audiences. These experts rely on
traditional technical writing for targeted research papers, programming guidelines, and repair
manuals.

1.
a. Science and Medical Papers- Research results can be hard to explain, so scientists collaborate with
technical writers to interpret and organize findings. These papers act as learning resources for
practitioners to understand procedures and results. As with any form of research, technical writers
ensure that proper credibility is given in the text.
b. Professional Reports and Review- In addition to writing for scientists and doctors, technical writers
assist in creating reports for business growth and educational institutions. Examples of
professional reports include project and business status reports, legal case reviews, and personnel
activity reports.
2. End-User Documentation- Almost every product you purchase has a written explanation of
operation. These “how-to” pieces are written to help users understand and operate products
correctly. Since end-user documentation requires clear and concise instruction, it’s important to
create content that breaks down technological terms to layman’s terms.

1.
a. User Help Guides- When software product users have questions that needs specific
answers, they turn to user help guides. These are written to provide clear and
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 sensible answers to common questions that may develop as use of software
programs continue. User help guides are broken down into sections depending on
the type of ‘help’ needed – allowing users to read ahead or re-read information to
make their understanding of a product stronger.EXAMPLE:         

b. Product Manuals- Product manuals are those small booklets that highlight a product’s main
features, general maintenance, and basic operation. It contains written guidelines informing the
audience how to use a certain product.
EXAMPLE:

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c.  Assembly Guidelines
- Since assembly guidelines tell users how to physically set up a product, technical writers are
responsible for writing clear and user-friendly, step-by-step instructions. It’s important for these
instructions to be written in a way that ensure users can accurately assemble products.
EXAMPLE:

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 3.  Technical Marketing Content
-Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing
valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and,
ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. The primary goal of marketing content, is to
convince the reader to buy a product or service.

1.
1.
a. Brochures- Brochures take users to a deeper level of understanding and appeal through clear
descriptions, functions, and uses of a product. It is intended to provide customers with additional
information on corporate offerings, and are used by sales personnel to persuade customers to
purchase a product. The brochure – also called a data sheet, product brief or solution brief –
describes the main features of the product, any specifications for its use and is usually
accompanied by either a picture of the product or an architectural design, illustrating the solution.
EXAMPLE:

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 Basic Principles of Good Technical Writing

We are done with the different types of technical writing needed in a specific profession. Now, are
to move on to our next topic which is about the Basic Principles of Good Technical Writing. Have
you ever wonder how do technical writers write direct and specific instructions? What principles do
they follow to make technical writings? What are the qualities of technical writer to make a good
technical instructions?
 
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF GOOD TECHNICAL WRITING

Technical writing is one of the most important elements of a company's customer support
strategy, and these five principles that technical writers must bear in mind to be successful.
Inattention to any of these five areas often leads to a substandard document and dissatisfaction
on the client end.
 
Mills and Walter (1980: 13-14) identified the basic principles as follows:

1.
1.
1. Always bear in mind a specific reader, real or imaginary, when you are writing a report; and
always assume that he is intelligent but uninformed.
 An awareness of who is going to read a user guide, the knowledge gap that the user guide is
filling and the delivery method of the guide all play important roles.
2. Before you start to write, always decide what the exact purpose of your report is; and make sure
that every paragraph, every sentence, every word makes a clear contribution to that purpose and
makes it at the right time.  
 Before beginning any writing task, the writer analyzes audience and identifies the purpose for the
document. The writer asks following questions about the audience:* Who will read the document?
* What are their biases?* What are technical writer’s ethical responsibilities when communicating
this to audience?
 With regard to purpose, technical writers ask: what should this document accomplish? What
should it do? Should it:* Inform* Request* Instruct* Suggest* Order* Report* Reply* Analyse/
critique* Compare
3. Use language that is simple, concrete, and familiar.
 Different types of writing have different audiences, and each audience has its own linguistic
needs, which the writer respects with tone and word choice.
4. At the beginning and end of every section of your report, check your writing according to this
principle: First you tell the reader what you’re going to tell him, then you tell him what you’ve told
him.
5. Make your report attractive to look at.
 

Characteristics or Properties of Technical Writing

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After knowing the basic principles in technical writing, I know that you are pondering on the question,
“How can I make my technical written work attractive? What are the features needed to make a technical
document accurate to its audience?” Let us answer all your questions by discussing our next topic!
 
CHARACTERISTICS OR PROPERTIES OF TECHNICAL WRITING
The following descriptive words sum up all the characteristics or properties of technical
writing that experts or authoritative people named in the book (Technical Writing in this Era
Globalization and Modern Technology) clearly expressed in their books.
ACCURATE
A technical written work is accurate when it deals with the facts that are completely true,
instead of things whose identity, appearance, or measurements are so difficult to determine. An
accurate report uses words, sentences, numbers, or figures that exactly express what the written
work intends to convey (Bantin, 2008). It avoids the frequent use of expressions for hedging such
as may, perhaps, maybe, seem, apparently, would, etc. Using an expression that conveys one and
only one meaning instead of an ambiguous term with multiple meaning will help readers get an
easy and quick understanding of the whole composition (Ling, 2004).
CLEAR
Your written work is clear if, on one reading, your readers are able to get a quick
understanding of the main message or point of the whole composition. You can easily achieve this
if you always remember that clear writing always results from clear thinking, as well as from the
use of simple, concise, specific, and grammatically correct language structures. How the person
around you express themselves or how you express the ideas as they come to your mind serves
as your guide or pattern in writing things on the paper.
For the sake of clarity, it is important too, that you apply in your work all the principles of
good sentence construction like parallelism, consistency of tense, dangling modifiers, split
infinitive, choppy sentences, run-on sentences, comma splice, wordiness, and so on. Applying the
qualities of a good paragraph writing such as unity, coherence, and emphasis are likewise
essential to making your technical written work appear clear to your readers. (Gustavi, 2008; and
Marsh, 2005)
FORMAL
In technical writing, you cannot just write anything you like in any way you want on your
writing paper, because some writing standards underlie the structure, pattern, format, and
language of this kind of writing. You have to adhere to these agreed upon technical writing rules
because your readers judge the value or reputation of your output based on the how you conform
to the conventions governing this kind of writing.
 
GRAPHICAL
Graphs like tablets, charts, figures, diagrams, maps, pictures, and other illustrations are
absolutely necessary in technical writing. This is so because this kind of writing deals with topics
that are technical; meaning, it deals with things appealing only to certain group of people, or uses
words expressing specialized meanings or ideas known only to a specific set of people.
Considering that this nature of technical writing makes the technical work not readable to all types
of readers in this world, you then have to include in your work non-prose materials like graphs to

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 stress, clarify, simplify, or sum up ideas which you textually present in your written compositions.
(Bertoline, 2009)
OBJECTIVE
This characteristic of technical writing is shown by any written work of yours that avoids
revealing your individual thinking, personal meaning, or emotional attitude about your subject
matter. Whatever understanding you have about your written work comes from outside yourself;
meaning, from the results of your environmental observations or sensory experiences. Avoiding to
include in your technical paper, your inner thoughts, sentiments or feelings means adopting an
impartial or impersonal stand or attitude towards what you’ve written.
This is what others call as the “You Attitude” or “Scientific Attitude”, whereby, in your
writing, your focus is on your reader’s point of view rather than on your views as the
writer. The following are some ways to maintain an objective or impersonal tone your
technical written work.

1.
1.
1.
1. Use passive voice instead of active voice structures.
2. Use third-person point of view by using words like his/her, they, or the user, instead of the
personalized first person point of view like I, We, Me, Ours, and the like.
3. Downplay the subject or personal nature of the text by avoiding the use of emotive words like
dissatisfied, uninteresting, or undignified.
However, some experts with the modern view on technical writing argued that adopting a
modern view of technical writing means humanizing technical writing; that is, feeling free
to use personal pronouns to arouse the readers’ involvement or interest in what they are
reading.
PRACTICAL
Technical writing is practical if it results in a written output that you can apply, use, or carry
out in your day-to-day living. It does not mainly deal with scenarios or situations that you can just
imagine or ponder on, but also tackles up things you can practice in your everyday life situations
like designing, constructing, repairing, selling, travelling, buying, bidding, inquiring, cooking,
painting, and many others.
PROCEDURAL
Being a formal and scientific way of writing whereby rules or conventions determine the
appropriateness of your written output, technical writing adheres to a particular course of writing
acts. It presents facts and information in a systematic or methodical manner. Here, you act like a
scientist following a certain procedure or a step-by-step method in proving your point about your
subject matter. For instance, first you have to identify and analyse your problem, collect data
about it, and present your conclusions, discoveries, or findings about the object of your study.
SPECIAL
Writing something to cater to a specific set of people rather than to any group of people
using expressions quite understandable and familiar only to this specific set of readers, not to all
kinds of people, is what makes technical writing special. Inclined to be exclusive and selective of
its topic, language, methodology, and readers, this kind of writing is special, unique, or extra
different from the other modes of writing.

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DIVERSIONARY
Considering technical writing as on-the-job writing that is prone to extensive exposure to
multicultural clients, co-workers, cross-cultural or multilingual communication brought about by
globalization through the internet or the Email, you come to think of this kind of writing as one
that will lead you to various topic, ideas, people, methodologies, concerns, purposes, formats,
language, etc. It has some aspects or features that are as diverse or varied as the different kinds
of jobs available to all kinds of people all over the world. Though (Perkins, 2008) argued that
intercultural communication is the “highest art and science of human communication,” your
technical writing acts must always be “sensitive to pitfalls” or hidden dangers arising from
diversities in a multi-cultural environment. (Canavor, 2010)
STRAIGHTFORWARD
A straightforward manner of writing means presenting knowledge or ideas honestly and
directly. Unlike these other ways of writing – literary and expository writing that permit the writer
to hide some meanings through figurative language – technical writing brings out things in frank,
unequivocal, or clear-cut way. Metaphorical, idiomatic, or circuitous expression of ideas has no
place in technical writing because your immediate purpose as a technical writer is to persuade
your readers to say “yes” instantly to what you have written.
Hence, to realize this objective, the language of your written work has to be direct, specific,
and simple enough to make you and your readers come to terms with you immediately. The use
of complex, highfalutin or pretentious words demands longer time for the reader to think or
decide about the effectiveness of your offer. This consequently hampers or delays the decision-
making power of any person you want to agree with what you have written.  
AUTHORITATIVE
To describe technical writing as authoritative is to think of it as one clothed with full rights,
powers, and influence to do a thing, to command or be obeyed, or to enforce something on any
one. The authority or power that you technical writing may wield over your reader springs form
the fact that the contents of your output does not mainly come from your our intelligence but also
from other people’s expertise, knowledge, and experience that could command respect or belief.
Proofs of the authoritativeness of your technical paper are the properly cited and
documented ideas of knowledgeable writers of technical writing books in your work, specifically,
the in-text citations, footnotes, and bibliographical entries in your paper. Another proof is the
reality that you are the creator of the paper, and, such as, you have an idea of the extent of its
excellence, and have the full control over the quality, kind, or extent of ideas to go into your
paper, including the way you react to inquiries about your output.
PRESENTABLE
The physical appearance of a technical writing output somehow mirrors the person who
produced such kind of paper. A dirty-looking technical written work diminishes its power, influence
or authoritativeness. So, if you want your technical paper to have a strong impact on the reader
or to elicit an immediate and positive response from him, see to it that your written work is free
from any grammatical and typographical errors. Present it nearly whether it is handwritten,
typewritten, or computerized.
The layout, order, or placement of the various parts of your work likewise makes your work
presentable. In addition, focusing your attention on these basic elements of a written prosaic
work; margin, spacing, punctuation marks, size/style of the letter, and quality/size of the
stationery or bond paper contributes a lot to making your entire composition presentable or
capable of getting serious and favourable attention from your readers.
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 QUALITIES OF A TECHNICAL WRITER

In view of these properties and principles of technical writing, the technical writer should possess
the following basic qualification:

1. Adequate knowledge of the subject matter.

2. Ability to compile information.
3. Ability to organize facts or ideas.
4. Ability to analyze and synthesize.
5. Ability to learn and use specialized vocabularies.
6. Ability to write at the reader’s comprehensive level.
7. Ability to use the inductive and deductive methods of reasoning.
8. Accuracy of language.
9. Objectivity in presenting facts and issues.
10. Ability to write concise prose.
11. Ability to determine the effectiveness of words, sentences, and paragraphs.
12. Ability to conform to the code of ethics in the technical writing professions.
 
END of LESSON 2
 
 
 
 

 
 

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