Technical
Writing
Process
1. Planning
2. Analyzing your Audience
3. Analyzing your Purpose
4. Generating Ideas about your Topic
5. Researching Additional Information
6. Organizing and Outlining your Document
7. Devising a Schedule and a Budget
8. Drafting
9. Revising
PLANNING
more than a third of the
total time spent on a
writing project. It is
critically important for
every document, from
an e-mail to a book
length manual.
ANALYZING YOUR
AUDIENCE
1. Who is your reader?
2. What are your
reader’s attitudes
and expectations?
3. Why and how will
the reader use your
document?
ANALYZING YOUR PURPOSE
1. After your readers have read your
document, what do you want them to
know or do?
2. What beliefs or attitudes do you want
them to hold?
“The purpose of this report is to
recommend whether the company should
adopt a health-promotion program.”
GENERATING IDEAS ABOUT YOUR TOPIC
a way to start mapping out what
information you will need to
include in the document, where to
put it, and what additional
information may be required
1. Asking journalist questions.
Who, what, where, why and
how. In a few minutes, you will
know how much more research
you need to do.
2. Brainstorming
3. Freewriting
4. Talking with someone. Discussing your
topic with someone is an excellent way
to:
✓ Find out what you already know about
the topic and to generate new ideas
✓ Quickly get a tense of how clearly you
understand your topic, what additional
information you will need, and what
questions your readers will want
answered.
✓ Find yourself making new connections
from one idea to another.
5. Clustering.
Company
Study sponsored?
it first? Pilot
program? Commercial
Immediately?
program?
When? What?
On Institute a ?
site? health-
Where? Who? ?
promotion
program
At health ?
club?
Why? How?
Research it
Increase ourslves?
productivity? Reduce
premiums Retain a
Reduce consultant Advice form
illness, injury insurance co.?
Why
Who When
Despedida Party
Where
What
6. Branching.
Institute a health- promotion program?
What? Who? How? Where? When? Why?
?
Company Commercial On site? At health Increase Reduce
sponsored? Program? club? productivity premiums
Retain a Research it
consultant? ourselves? Immed Pilot
Advice from iately? program? Reduce
insurance illness,
Study
co.? injury
it first?
Despedida
Who When Where Why What
• ALL • Friday • Vikings • Retirem • Farewel
Employ • 6 pm ent l Party
ee for
• Boss • Boss
Bossing Bossing
RESEARCHING ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- Once you have a good idea of what you
already know about your topic, you
need to obtain the rest of the
information you will need.
ORGANIZING AND OUTLINING YOUR
DOCUMENT
Although each document will have its
own structure, you can use or adapt
existing organizational patterns to your
own situation so that you don’t need to
start from scratch.
Organizing
a. to systematize:
to organize
e.g. Types:
Narrative Description
the files of an office.
Process Analysis
(dictionary.com) Illustration
b. : to arrange and Classification
(outlining)
plan (an event or Comparison and
contrast
activity)
Cause and Effect
: to arrange or order Definition
things so that they can
be found or used easily
and quickly : to put
things into a particular
arrangement or order
(Merriam-Webster.com)
Sample More specifically, on March 4,
20XX, there was a delay in
starting Phase II of our
Cause project because you did not
place the special order for
flasks and pipettes.
Consequently, we did not
have enough equipment to
Effect begin our work. As you know,
time is of the essence. This
delay could have easily been
avoided.
Source: Written Warning Poor Work Performance (http://www.med.umich.edu/
medschool/staff/discipline/section4/letterN.pdf)
As an Assistant Director of this company, I have
recently found that keeping the work area tidy
Sample is not observed as one of the foremost to-do
tasks. I have the following suggestions for
maintaining the cleanliness of the office:
• Make it a point, to recurrently, clean the
Process hand-set and the mouthpiece of the phone
because it offers a haven for germs
Analysis • There should be sterilized wipes available for
quickly cleaning up coffee spots and other
“Notice similar material
• A can-liner for collecting trash should be kept
the in close vicinity so that the bags containing
bullets?” the waste material can be quickly emptied
and replaced
• A handy tool for dusting purposes must
always be present in the drawer for cleaning
the settled dust on computers, furniture etc.
Source: Sample Memorandum for Keeping the Office Clean (http://
www.topjobapplications.com/sample-memorandum-for-keeping-the-office-
clean/)
Five Tasks:
1.Group Similarities
2.Ordering the items
in the group
3.Organizing the
Group
4.Avoiding Common
logical problems
5.Choosing an outline
format
5 tasks of making an Outline
1. Grouping
Similar
items
2. Ordering the items in the groups.
In some cases, ordering items in each
group is simple. For instance, if an item
precedes another in time or is more
important, it should come first.
3. Organizing the groups. Often your
readers expect a particular structure.
4. Avoiding common logical problems.
As you refine your outline,
avoid faulty coordination and
faulty subordination.
Faulty Coordination
occurs when a writer
equates items that
are not of equal
value or not at the
same level of
generality.
Common Household Tools
Faulty Coordination Proper Coordination
• Screwdrivers • Screwdrivers
• Drills • Drills
• Hammers
• Claw hammers
➢Claw hammers
• Ball peen
➢Ball peen
hammers hammers
Faulty subordination
occurs when an
item is made a
subunit of a unit k
which it does not
belong.
5. Choosing an outline format
Traditional Outline Decimal Outline
I. 1.
A. 1.1
1.
2. 1.1.1
B. 1.1.2
1. 1.2
a.
1.2.1
b.
(1) 1.2.2
(2) 2.
(a) 2.1 etc
(b)
DEVISING A SCHEDULE AND A BUDGET
During the planning stage, you also
need to decide when you will
provide various portions of the
document to your readers and how
much you can spend on the project.
DRAFTING
A stage of the writing
process during which a writer
organizes information and ideas
into sentences and paragraphs.
DRAFTING
A first or preliminary
form of any writing,
subject to revision,
etc. (dictionary.com)
Get Start with the
comfortable easiest topic
Draft quickly Don’t stop to get more
information or to
revise
Try invisible Stop in the middle
writing of a section
TEMPLATES & STYLES
Template Style
❖These are ❖ They are similar to
templates in that they
preformatted apply to the design of
designs for smaller elements,
different types such as heading &
body texts.
of documents,
like letters,
memos, etc.
• Templates do not always reflect the
best design principles.
• Readers get tired of seeing the same
designs.
• Templates cannot help you answer the
important questions about your
document.
USING STYLES
Styles are like small templates in that they apply to
the design of smaller elements, such as heading and
body text. They are much more reliable that
templates.
• Styles save you time.
• Styles help ensure consistency.
5” margin
TNR, 12”,
Black
Header
required but
with default
fonts
Aligned right
Boarder
design
included
Font color and
style is
different
Advantages and Disadvantages of Using
Default Templates (and styles)
Advantages Disadvantages
❖Timesaver ❖Unoriginal
❖Easy to use ❖Basic
❖Auto Saved ❖Unchallenging
❖Organized ❖Restrictive
REVISING
-the process of making sure that the
document says what you want to say
and says it professionally.
Revising by Yourself
• Let it sit.
• Read it aloud.
• Use checklists.
• Review a printout of your draft.
Using Revision Software
• Spell Checkers
• Grammar Checkers
• Thesauri
