Technical writing aims for clarity, conciseness, and accuracy to communicate complex information to non-specialist audiences. It follows a writing process of prewriting, drafting, and rewriting. Prewriting gathers ideas through techniques like brainstorming. Drafting packages these ideas into clear sentences and paragraphs with transitions. Rewriting involves revising for organization and flow, editing for grammar, and proofreading for errors. The goals are to convey meaning identically to all readers, express ideas concisely while retaining completeness, and ensure factual accuracy through correct grammar. Ethics also guide interacting with colleagues and presenting information truthfully.

1. Technical Writing
Definition
Goals
Writing Process

2. What is Technical Writing?
 Technical writing introduces you to some of
the most important aspects of writing in the
world of science, technology, and business –
the kind of writing that scientists, nurses,
doctors, computer specialists, government
officials, engineers, and other people
do as a part of their regular work.

3. What is Technical Writing?
 The term “technical” refers to knowledge
that is not widespread, that is more the
territory of experts and specialists.
 Whatever your major is, you are
developing an expertise, and whenever
you try to write anything about your field,
you are engaged in technical writing.

4. What is Technical Writing?
 Technical communication can be written, oral,
or visual.
 Technical writing is composed in and for the
workplace.
 Technical writing is a significant factor in work
experience for a variety of reasons.
 Technical writing serves valuable purposes in
the workplace and often involves teamwork.

5. IMPORTANCE OF Technical Writing
 Completion of a task
 Facility of Work
 Improvement of Interpersonal Relationships
 Increase of Income
 Means of Job promotion
 Improvement of Personality traits
 Security of Records

6. Qualities of a Technical Writer
• Superior Communication Skills
• HOTS or Higher-Order Thinking Skills
• Persuasive Skills
• Integrity
• Zest
• Tech.Writing in this Era of Globalization and Modern Tech. by
Baraceros

7. What is the purpose of technical
writing?
 Technical writing is the delivery of
technical information to readers in a
manner that is adapted to their needs,
level of understanding, and background.
 Technical writing is intended to
communicate to a specific audience, for a
specific purpose.

8. The Audience
 The audience element is so important that it is
one of the cornerstones of technical writing.
 You are challenged to write about highly
technical subjects but in a way that a beginner
—a non-specialist—could understand.

9. Translating Technical Information
 In a world of rapid technological
development, people are constantly falling
behind and becoming technological
illiterates.
 As a technical writer, you need to write
about the area of specialization you know
and plan to write about in such a way that
even Granddad can understand.

10. Q & A
 What are the five qualities of and effective
Technical Writer?
• Superior Communication Skills
• HOTS or Higher-Order Thinking Skills
• Persuasive Skills
• Integrity
• Zest

11.  In the Importance of Tw, this depends on
emotional stability, interpersonal relationships
and ethical standards;
* Improvement of Personality traits

12.  Transactions, dealings, agreements have to be
recorded or documented for safekeeping
purposes or for knowledge transmission. TW
prevents a possible loss or change of data
*Security of Records

13.  This element in TW is so important that it is
one of the cornerstones of technical writing.
You are challenged to write about highly
technical subjects but in a way that a beginner
—a non-specialist—could understand.
 *The Audience

14.  Fill in the blanks
 Technical writing introduces you to some of the most important
aspects of writing in the world of________,________, and
_________– the kind of writing
that_________,________,_______, _________,
__________officials, engineers, and other people do as a
part of their regular work.
*science, technology, and business
scientists, nurses, doctors, computer specialists,
government officials

15.  What does HOTS stand for?
 *Higher-Order Thinking Skills

16. *Goals of Effective Technical
Writing
Clarity
Conciseness
Accuracy
Organization
Ethics

17. Effective Technical Writing: Clarity
Methods for developing ideas precisely
– An expressive essay can clarify the writer’s intent
through emotional, impressionistic, connotative
words (soon, many, several, etc.).
– An impressionistic word such as
“near” will mean different things
to different people which is okay
in in an essay where the goal may
be to convey a feeling.

18. Effective Technical Writing: Clarity
 The ultimate goal of effective technical writing is to say
the same thing to every reader.
 Let’s say I write instructional manuals for company
manufacturing space heaters. If I write,
“Place the space heater near an open window,”
what will this mean to thousands of customers who
purchase the machine?

19.  One person may place the heater 6 feet from
the window.
 Another reader will place the heater 6 inches
from the window.
 As the writer, I have failed to
communicate clearly.
Effective Technical Writing: Clarity

20. Effective Technical Writing: Clarity
 Specify
– Provide specific detail
– Avoid vague words (some,
recently)
– Answer reporters’ questions
(who, what, where, when, why,
how)

21. Effective Technical Writing: Clarity
 Avoid obscure words
– Use easily understood words
– Write to express, not to impress
– Write to communicate, not to confuse
– Write the way you speak
aforementioned already discussed
in lieu of instead of

22. Effective Technical Writing: Clarity
 Limit and/or define your use of
abbreviations , acronyms, and jargon.
 Define your terms parenthetically
 CIA (Cash in Advance)
or
 Supply a separate glossary
 Alphabetized list of terms, followed by their
definitions

23. Effective Technical Writing: Clarity
 Use the active versus the passive voice.
 Passive voice:
It was decided all employees will take a ten percent cut in
pay.
 Unclear: Who decided?
 Active: The Board of Directors decided that all
employees . . .
Overtime is favored by hourly workers.
 Wordy
 Active: Hourly workers favor overtime.

24. Effective Technical Writing:
Conciseness
 Conciseness which means expressing oneself
in the fewest number of words at the same
time retaining completeness in meaning.

25. Effective Technical Writing:
Conciseness
 Limit paragraph, word, and sentence length.
– A paragraph in a memo, letter, or short report should consist of
 No more than four to six typed lines or
 No more than fifty words.
– Fog index (sixth to eighth grade level)
 Strive for an average of 15 words per sentence
 No more than 5 multisyllabic words per 100 words

26. Effective Technical Writing:
Conciseness
Fog Index
 Count up to 100 words in successive sentences
– Divide words by number of sentences = average
number of words per sentence
 Count number of long words (three or more syllables)
within sentences
– Don’t count proper names (Christopher Columbus),
long words created by combining shorter words
(chairperson), or three syllable words created by ed
or es endings (united).

27. Effective Technical Writing:
Conciseness
– Use the meat cleaver theory of revision
Cut the sentence in half or thirds
– Avoid shun words– replace them with
active words
Avoid words ending in –tion or –sion
Came to the conclusion concluded
– Avoid camouflaged words
Make an amendment to amend

28. Effective Technical Writing:
Conciseness
 Avoid the expletive pattern
– There is, are, was, were, will be
– It is, was
– There are three people who will work for Acme.
– Three people will work for Acme.
 Omit redundancies
– During the year of 1996
– During 1996

29. Effective Technical Writing:
Conciseness
 Avoid wordy phrases
– In order to purchase to purchase
 Proofread for accuracy
 Consider ethics

30. Effective Technical Writing:
Accuracy
 The importance of correct
grammar and mechanics
– Grammatical or mechanical
errors make writers look
unprofessional and
incompetent.

31. Effective Technical Writing:
Accuracy
 Grammar is so important in technical
writing that in a one page assignment
– 4 major grammatical errors = F
– 3 major grammatical errors = D
– 2 major grammatical errors = C
– 1 major grammatical error = B
 “A” means “excellent” which is defined as
“without flaw”

32. Effective Technical Writing:
Organization
 Methods for organizing
– Spatial
– General to Specific
– Chronological
– Mechanism Description
– Process Description
– Classification

33. Effective Technical Writing:
Organization
 Methods for organizing
– Definition
– Comparison/Contrast
– More Important to Less Important
– Situation-Problem-Solution-
Evaluation
– Cause-Effect

34. Effective Technical Writing: Ethics
 Ethics – methods encouraging moral
standards in technical writing
– Practical
– Legal
– Moral

35. Effective Technical Writing: Ethics
 General categories of ethics in communication
– Behavior towards colleagues, subordinates and
others (plagiarism, harassment, malicious actions)
– Dealing with experimental subjects, interviewees,
etc. (informed consent)
– Telling the “truth” (falsify data, misrepresent facts)
– Rhetoric—choosing your words (loaded words, discriminatory
language, logical fallacies)

36.  In the goals of effective TW:
– The ultimate goal of effective technical writing is to
say the same thing to every reader.
*CLARITY

37.  _____________which means expressing
oneself in the fewest number of words at the
same time retaining completeness in meaning.
 * CONCISENESS

38.  The importance of correct grammar and
mechanics
*ACCURACY

40. Effective Technical Writing:
Process
 The writing process is effective . . . and
easy.
 All that you need to do is three things:
– Prewrite (about 25 percent of your time)
– Write/Draft (about 25 percent of your time)
– Rewrite/Post-write (about 50 percent of your time)

41. Effective Technical Writing:
Prewriting Techniques
 Brainstorming sessions
 Free writing of looping
 Interview
 Questionnaire survey
 Reading
 Listing
 Speculating
 Semantic Mapping or Drawing

42. DRAFTING or WRITING
 The stage of packaging or formatting data
– Data packaging– means spending time and effort in forming
clear and correct sentences to express the ideas you have
collected through a pre-writing strategy or data-collecting
technique
- It involves the use of appropriate transitional devices and
paragraph organizational techniques that are suitable to
your purpose and are effective for paragraph unity,
coherence and emphasis.

43. – Formatting Data – makes you think of how your
report should appear
– This means giving your written work a design, lay-
out, or arrangement of its words, sentences, and
paragraphs, illustrations, colors and so forth.

44. POST-WRITING
 A. Revising – making changes in the context
and organization of the text so that it will reflect
your specific purpose, fit your intended
audience, and apply the essential qualities of a
paragraph like unity, coherence, emphasis and
correctness

45.  B. Editing – means to check the
grammaticalness of the text
– The use of the different parts of speech, to diction or
choice of words, to construction of sentences, and
to your punctuation marks and spelling.
 C. Proofreading – focusing attention to
typographical errors, report format,
documentation style as well as missing parts or
words in the written work.

46. Technical Writing
 Is important to success in business
 Lets you conduct business
 Takes time
 Costs the company
 Reflects your interpersonal communication
skills
 Often involves teamwork

47. Sources
 Society for Technical Communication
 Technical Writing - A Dalton: Organizing
 Online Technical Writing: Information
Infrastructures – Comparison
 Online Technical Writing