Definition Goals Writing Process Technical Writing Definition Goals Writing Process

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.

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.

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.

Importance of Teamwork Business and industry have expectations about the results of teamwork. Business management philosophies depend upon teamwork. Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma (continuous improvement) programs encourage efficient teamwork. Strategies for successful collaboration can improve outcomes.

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 On the progress of projects; systematic planning and performance of work; definitive course of action w/c assures involvement of people and things in their desire to make the project reach its full ending Tw is an act of communicating what are happening in the workplace; update on the present, past or future of the work; workers being informed of the status of the job; awareness of their contribution; involves graphics and figures to help workers get a clear, specific and emphatic understanding of the nature of the assigned task Initiates a meeting of minds bet. Two or more people in relation to their accomplishment– emails, memos etc Research proposals, bid proposals, brochures, sales letters, order letters offers buying-selling activities By reflecting your thinking prowess, communicative competence and professional preparations Tw also depends on emotional stability, interpersonal relationships and ethical standards; 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

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 Listening, speaking, reading and writing has to be mastered to be able to exchange ideas excellently; writing is the most used skill; the other skills are means of obtaining data for your tech.work; these are used needed for varieties of ideas, information,opinions and other forms of knowledge; -All these 4 macro skills of comm. Increases your schemata or stored ideas in the brain essential in writing your projects and assignments 2.Deeper mental effort from thinker; thinking beyond sensory experience– called abstract knowledge; this makes you entertain ideas beyond what the eyes can see; this takes place during—interpreting, evaluating, creating and appreciating; these elicit meanings based on reader’s viewpoints or personal thought/feelings 3. writer—seller; reader-buyer; the writer ha the burden of proof to convince/persuade reader of the excellence of the technical ppr; - to succeed in this you need to apply ETHOS- appeal to one’s moral, educational, ethics/values/standards ; PATHOS – appeal to ones emotions or feelings and LOGOS– appeal to one’slogical, sytematic, or orderly thinking 4. Always practice truthfulness; honesty; not plaigarize others’ work 5. Knows how to turn anything difficult to something that’s easy and enjoyable; manuals, memos, brochures, tech.reports,etc have the power to stimulate reader’s interest and curiosity when tech.written report reflects your sense of humor, optimism, positive thinking; positive dispositions

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Fill in the blanks *science, technology, and business 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

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

*Goals of Effective Technical Writing Clarity Conciseness Accuracy Organization Ethics

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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).

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

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

Effective Technical Writing: Conciseness Avoid wordy phrases In order to purchase to purchase Proofread for accuracy Consider ethics Proofread means— Ethics --

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

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”

Effective Technical Writing: Organization Methods for organizing Spatial General to Specific Chronological Mechanism Description Process Description Classification Spatial— General to specific— Chronological— Mechanism des— Process des— Classification—

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

Effective Technical Writing: Ethics Ethics – methods encouraging moral standards in technical writing Practical Legal Moral Practical- Legal— Moral--

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)

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

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

The importance of correct grammar and mechanics *ACCURACY

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)

Effective Technical Writing: Prewriting Techniques Brainstorming sessions Free writing of looping Interview Questionnaire survey Reading Listing Speculating Semantic Mapping or Drawing *Tech.Writing in this era of globalization and modern technology

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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