Technical Writing

Lecture 3

Technical Writing Basics

• Five Traits of Technical Writing:
• Clarity
• Conciseness
• Accessible document Design
• Audience recognition
• Accuracy
• Check list for Effective Technical Style

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Five Traits of Technical Writing

Clarity

Conciseness

Audience recognition

Accessible document Design

Accuracy

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Clarity

The most
important criteria
for effective
technical writing
:

Clarity 3
Clarity

Document is not
clearly
understood

Reader call the

writer for further
clarification

Writer's time is Reader’s time is

Message is lost
wasted wasted

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Clarity
Focus on Why You Are Writing:
 Before starting to write, You should have a good idea of precisely
what you want to communicate to your audience.

 You can’t really expect your readers to get a clear message if

your goals aren’t first defined in your own mind.

 Writing without a clear goal will almost certainly result in Poor

Communication.
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Clarity

 Whether your have to write a short Memo or a lengthy technical

report, you should start with a firm sense of purpose so you can:
(1) Present appropriate supporting data.
(2) Test it’s adequacy.
(3) Discard Anything that is not needed.
 To present information or to persuade people to act or think in a
certain way, Your documents will have to be both informative and
persuasive.

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Clarity : Example

Use report’s questions checklist to clarify this

email: when, what, where, who, why, how, 7
Clarity : Example

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Conciseness

 Anyone reading your document (Memo, letters, reports, etc, …) is

likely to be in a hurry.

 Your documents need to have the most important information at

the beginning. This means moving from the general to the specific.

 Readers would much rather know your key points, complaints,

requests, conclusions or recommendations before they read
supporting details.

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Conciseness

 For instance, if you did a series of tests to determine whether

some equipment should be replaced, your supervisor will want to
know what you have found out and what you recommend.

 A complete and detailed description of your test procedures may

be necessary to support your main points and likely be verified by
others.

 On the other hand, It could go unread by those in the management

department who are only interested in bottom lines.
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 Conciseness
 Where you tell your readers what they most need to know depends
on the kind of document.
 In a letter, it will be in the opening sentences. In a MEMO, you
should provide a subject line making more than just a vague
reference to the overall topic.
Example (1):
Vague: SUBJECT: Employee safety
Better: SUBJECT: Need for employees to wear hard hats and
safety glasses.
Example (2):
Vague: SUBJECT: Emergency requisitions
Better: SUBJECT: Recommendations to change the procedures
for making emergency requisitions.
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Conciseness
 Most MEMOS are now sent by Emails, which may limit the number
of characters for your subject heading.

 The challenge is to get as much meaning as possible into a small

space and to clearly state your key point.

 No matter what kind of document you are writing, first determine

your audience and purpose, and then give your readers the
information they most need in the place they can most efficiently
access it, say, at the beginning of the paper, rather than buried
somewhere in the middle or at the end.
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 Conciseness ( summary)

 Successful technical writing should help the reader understand the

text.

 Technical writing had to be written concisely enough to fit inside a

specific-sized box (give me an example*).

 Successful technical writing tries to avoid multisyllabic words. How?

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Conciseness: Example

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Audience recognition

 Audience is classified in three levels traits:

High Tech Peers

Low Tech Peers

Lay Readers
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Audience levels
 High Tech Peers:
 Know as much about a subject matter as you.

 Style of writing: Abbreviations/ Acronyms OK.

 Low Tech Peers:

 who work in your company know something about the subject
matter.

 Style of writing: (Abbreviations/ Acronyms need parenthetical

definitions.) 16
 Audience levels

 Lay Readers:

 Are the customers.

 Style of writing: No abbreviations/ acronyms. Explanations
instead.

Writing successfully to these three types of audiences

Requires different techniques.

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Audience recognition

Focus on Your Readers:

 If you found yourself in a remote region and met people who had
never seen anything electronic, You wouldn't hand them iPad,
iPhone, or MP3 player and expect them to use it!!
 Before that, a great deal of technology transfer would have to
take place.
 You would have to teach your “audience” how to use your
gadget assuming that they are interested in that.
 This looks naïve, but a lot of technical writing fails because
writers make inaccurate assumptions regarding the people who
read their documents.
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Audience recognition
 Engineers often write without taking adequate time initially to
consider the nature, needs, interests, level of expertise or possible
reactions of those who must read their work.

 Since YOU will be writing for many different audiences (Marketing,

Lawyers, Engineers in other fields, Non-technical and non-
specialized staff, Customers, Managers, Owners, Production,
Journals, Promotions, Technicians, etc … , it is worthy to take
sometime to think about your audience before editing to them!!??
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Audience recognition
 Analysis of audience is not just a question of being polite, or
sensitive.
 Your goal is to send a clear message through your document to your
audience.
 Then, you must consider their abilities and expectations as you plan,
write and revise.
 To get results, your communication must bridge a gap between you
and your target audience.
 Practically, this gap is likely to be caused by variations in
Knowledge, Ability, or Interest.
 Before putting you pencil on a paper, you must identify who your
audience is and then ask yourself the following questions??: 20
 Knowledge
 Are my readers engineers in my field or expertise who are searching for technical information,
and will they be bored by elementary details?

 Are they engineers from a different field who will need some general technical background first?

 Are they managers or supervisors who may be less knowledgeable in my field but who need to
make executive decisions based on what I write?

 Are they technicians or others without my expertise and training but with a strong practical
knowledge of the field?

 Are they non experts from marketing, sales, finance, or other fields who lack engineering or
technical background but who are interested in the subject for non engineering reasons?

 Are they a mixed audience, such as a panel or committee made up of experts and laypeople?
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Accessible document design

Use highlighting techniques (tables, headings and

subheadings,
different font sizes, column lines, and white space) 22
Satisfy Document Specifications
 You should be aware of any specifications your document must meet, before
writing.

 Many audience expect documents they receive to be within certain

parameters.

 Various document specifications exist. Such specifications may require you to

provide sections addressing certain topics in your report, like: experimental
problems, environmental impact, budget estimation.

 The editors of an engineering journal may put limits on the number of words
and the number of graphics your technical paper can include.
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Satisfy Document Specifications

 A word limit is frequently placed on the length of an Abstract or

Summary as well as on other sections of a document.
 Many reports have specifications that include requirements not only
for their length but also for such matters as headings, spacing, and
margin width.

Example:
Each research proposal shall consist of not more than five single spaced pages
plus a cover page, a budget page, a summary page of no more than 300 words,
and a page detailing current research funding. All text shall be printed in single-
column format on 7.5 x 11-inch paper with margins of at least 1 inch on all sides.
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Accessible document
 Without even reading a word, one can look at the pages of a
document and get a good idea of how efficiently the material is
presented.

 Structure of the material is important: how well the material is laid

out in accessible format for the reader.

 Most important factors are:

 The subdivision of material into sections and subsections with hierarchical
headings and Paragraph length.
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Use lists for some information
 A well-organised list is sometimes the most efficient way to
communicate information.

 There are three main types of lists:

1. Numbered: used to indicate when a set of data follows a certain order. It
can also be used to indicate an order of importance in your data, such as
list of priorities or needed equipment.

1. Checklist: can be used to indicate that all the items on your list must be
tended to, usually in the order presented. When checklists get longer than
10 boxes, try to break them down into smaller more manageable sections
and give each section its own subheading.
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Use lists for some information

 3. Bulleted: lists are commonly used when items in the list are in no specific
order. Lengthy bulleted lists – over 7 items – are hard for reader to refer to, so
use numbers for longer lists even if no order of priority is intended.

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Example (numbered)

First of all, set the dual power supply to + 12 V and -12 V. Next, set the op-amp
up as shown in figure 1. Use a 1 Vpp sinewave at 1 kHz and then plot the output
waveform on digital scope. Then obtain a Bode plot for the gain from 200 Hz to
20 kHz.

You could present this information more efficiently in list form:

1. Set the dual power supply to + 12 V and -12 V.

2. Set the op-amp up as shown in Figure 1.
3. Use a 1 Vpp sinewave at 1 kHz.
4. Plot the output waveform on the digital scope.
5. Obtain a Bode plot for the gain from 200 Hz to 20 kHz.
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Example ( checklist)

Example:
Connect the monitor to the computer through the monitor port.
Connect the keyboard and mouse to the computer through the
assigned port.
Connect the power supply to the computer.
Connect the printer to the printer port.
Connect the modem to the modem port.
These instructions could also be presented as follows:

1. Connect the monitor to the computer through the monitor port. □

2. Connect the keyboard and mouse to the computer through the
assigned port. □
3. Connect the power supply to the computer. □
4. Connect the printer to the printer port. □
5. Connect the modem to the modem port. □ 29
Example (bulleted)

Example:
Some of the main concerns of environmental engineering are:
• Air pollution control.
• Public water supply.
• Wastewater treatment.
• Solid waste management and disposal.
• Industrial hygiene.
• Hazardous wastes.

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Accuracy
 Provide accurate information:
 Even the clearest writing is useless when the information it
conveys is WRONG!
 If you refer to data in Appendix B of your report when you mean
Appendix D, the error could stump your reader and cause them to
lose confidence in your report.
 Inaccurate references to the work of others also will cause your
readers to be highly suspicious of the reliability of your entire
report and even of your honesty as a writer.
 Another kind of inaccuracy might be a claim that is true sometimes
but not always and under all conditions.
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Accuracy

 Example:
o
 Water always boils at 100 C. What about purity and variations in atmospheric
pressure?

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Check list for Effective Technical Style

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