Traits (Characteristics) of

Technical Writing

Lecturer: Zeenatullah “ Sail “

Traits of Technical Writing
 Traits
mean’s characteristics or qualities.
 Technical writing has five traits.

Traits

Clarit Conciseness
Accessible
document
Audience
Accuracy
y design
recognition
 1. Clarity
 Clarity in Technical writing is mandatory.
 The most important criteria for effective

technical writing is clarity.

 If the correspondence is not clearly

understood, the reader will either call the

writer for further clarification, or just
ignore the information. In either case, the
writer’s and reader’s time is wasted; the
message is lost.
 1. Clarity
 Clarity is not just a time concern issue.

Think of it from this aspect:

your company has written an
installation manual for a product. The
manual, unfortunately, is not clear. When
the reader fails to understand the
content, three negative can occur.
 1. Clarity
1. Bad: The product is damaged. The owner
ship back it. The company should replace its cost,
and the public relations have been frayed.
2. Worse: The owner is hurt, leading to pain,
anxiety, doctor’s bills, and bad public relations.
3. Worst: The company is sued. The
company loses money, the writer of the
manual loses job, and public relations are
broken.
 1. Clarity
 If a student fails to clearly understand
a poem, a short story, a play, or a
novel, that is unfortunate; however
product is not damaged, no one is
physically hurt, and no one is sued.
But in technical writing if we don’t
care about clarity, so we will face with
so many barriers or problems just like
in the above example.
Clarity
1. Clarity
is achieved through two ways.

1.Clarity is achieved through

reporter’s questions
The
 writer should answer the following reporter’s
questions in his/her correspondence.

Who, What, When, Where, Why, How

 If
1. Clarity
a manager want to write a correspondence
to his/her employees about a meeting.
He/she should answer the following questions
in his/her correspondence.
When is the meeting?
Where is the meeting?
Who are in the meeting?
How much information is detailed?
Why is the meeting being held?
What is the agenda of the meeting?
 1. Clarity
2.Clarity is achieved through
Specificity
 In contrast to mystery stories which create
suspense, technical writing must be clear.
 The ultimate goal of effective technical

writing is to say the same thing to multiple

readers.

1. Clarity
Writers should not use connotative
words in technical writing instead they
should use more denotative words to
convey the message easily to the
audiences.
 Connotative words convey an

impression, but denotative words convey

your message directly to the audience.
?