Processes and Guidelines in Technical Writing Part (2)
Audience analysis Types of Audiences Experts Technicians Executives Nonspecialists
Background-knowledge, experience, training Needs and interests Audience Analysis Audiences, regardless of category, must also be analyzed in terms of characteristics such as the following: Background-knowledge, experience, training Needs and interests Other demographic characteristics Audience analysis can get complicated by at least two other factors: More than Wide variability in an audience one audience
Audience Adaptation Add information readers need to understand your document. Omit information your readers do not need. Change the level of the information you currently have. Add examples to help readers understand. Change the level of your examples. Change the organization of your information. Strengthen transitions.
Write stronger introductions—both for the whole document and for major sections. Create topic sentences for paragraphs and paragraph groups. Change sentence style and length. Work on sentence clarity and economy. Use more or different graphics. Break text up or consolidate text into meaningful, usable chunks. Add cross-references to important information.
Use headings and lists. Use special typography, and work with margins, line length, line spacing, type size, and type style.
Translating technical information This section shows you a step-by-step method for: "translating" technical discussions, that is, specific techniques you can use to make difficult technical discussions easier for nonspecialist readers to understand. The audience of the report and its background The needs or uses the audience has for the report The event, circumstance, or situation that requires the report to be written Help to decide: What information to include in the report What information to exclude from the report How to discuss the information you do include in the report
Methods for Trnaslating Technical Information Definitions of unfamiliar terms Comparisons to familiar things Elaborating the process Providing descriptive detail Providing illustrations Providing examples and applications Shorter sentences
Stronger transitions and overviews Repetition of key words Transition words and phrases. Reviews of topics covered and topics to be covered The "in-other-words" technique Posing rhetorical questions Explaining the importance
Providing historical background Reviewing theoretical background Providing the human perspective Combining the translating techniques
Common grammar, usage, punctuation problems SEE the attatched Word file and REFER to the book when writing the report.
Thank You!