Defining Technical Communication
Throughout your student life, you have been asked to write and give presentations for a
variety of purposes and diverse audiences. In your language courses, the purpose of most
assignments was to convey your knowledge of the language and your mastery of prose
while entertaining your audience.
Technical Communication
For this course, you will become familiar to the world of Technical Communication. We
use the term technical to refer to knowledge that is specific to experts and specialists. As
a student in a field of study, you are developing an expertise in a particular area.
Whenever you are sharing information about your field, you are engaged in technical
communication. For this course, you will collect information from experts to give
specific information about technical or specialized topics to a selected audience in a clear,
concise and straightforward form.
The Audience
Your audience is the cornerstone of your technical writing or technical presentation.
Whether you are preparing to enter university or the workplace, you need to practice
communicating with audiences different from those you have been accustomed to
communicating to in a school setting. In technical communication, the audiences you
write for are experts, technicians, executives, employers, employees, colleagues, and
most frequently non-experts who come from different backgrounds, have different needs,
abilities, and interests.
The Purpose
In technical communication, the purposes vary. You may want to explain, describe,
define, persuade, justify, or argue. Each module of this course is designed to make you
practice for specific purposes.
The genres or the types of communication
Adherence to document type and specific formats are key elements to technical
communication. Technical writers master many different genres such as letters, memos,
e-mails, instructions, proposals, reports, and the likes. Oral presentations frequently
include impromptu speech, staff meetings, presentations to clients, colleagues, and
supervisors, scripted presentations at professional meetings, etc...
Characteristics of effective technical communication
Clear, Comprehensive and Appropriate content
The subject of your communication must be clear and focused, conveying a single
meaning in a tone and a language carefully selected for your audience. What may
be appropriate for you to know might not be for your audience. Technical
communication is all about sharing facts that are credible and verifiable.
Accurate Content
Regardless of the purpose of your communication, you must endeavor to be as
objective as possible and free from bias. If the words or tone used suggests you
are slanting information, the validity of your entire content will be tarnished.
Crafted Organization
All technical documents have an introduction in which the background, the
context or the motivation for the communication is outlined, a body in which
technical details are elaborated upon, and a conclusion in which the main points
are reminded. In written texts, the use of headings, subheadings, graphs, figures
and illustrations are regularly used to allow readers to quickly access information.
Clear organization makes your information more accessible to your audience. A
weak organization of your content may result in communication failures.
Appropriate style
The use of the active voice is usually preferred to the use of the passive voice.
Short sentences make it easier for non-experts to navigate the content of technical
communication. Technical communication is clear, coherent, and concise;
wordiness and complex metaphors must be avoided.
Adapted vocabulary
To maintain interest and to achieve your communication goals, you must adapt
the vocabulary to your audience and explain technical and academic terms when
necessary.
Proper Grammar usage
Effective technical communication is exempt of severe grammar and syntax
mistakes. Poorly written documents create miscommunication problems and may
affect your reputation, or the one of your company or your institution.
Society for Technical Communication. http://www.stc.org/about-stc. June 25,
2014. Website
McMurrey, David. A. Online Technical Writing Course guide. https://www.tu-
chemnitz.de/phil/english/chairs/linguist/independent/kursmaterialien/
TechComm/acchtml/intro.html#about. June 25, 2014.Web.
The Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing.
http://www.mhhe.com/mayfieldpub/tsw/toc.htm. June 25, 2014. Web
Characteristic of Technical Writing,
http://www.ce.rit.edu/people/melton/250/writing/TechnicalWritingCharacteristics.
pdf, June 25, 2014. Web
Jones, Dan, and Lane, Karen. Technical Communication: strategies for college
and the Workplace, Longman, 2002. print
