Five Traits of
Technical Writing
Ailyn Grace Pantaleon-Buquid
A Definition
• Technical writing is communication written for and about
business and industry.
• It must be quantifiable, precise, and easily understood.
• It is objective.
• It is written factually using short sentences and paragraphs
with denotative words.
• It uses highlighting techniques (graphics, headings, various
fonts, white space, bullets, etc.)
What Technical Writing is NOT!
• It is not literature (prose or poetry).
• It is neither an expressive essay nor an expository
essay.
• It is not journalism.
• It does not focus on sensory images
5 Traits of Technical Writing
CLARITY CONCISENESS ACCESSIBLE AUDIENCE ACCURACY
(ORGANIZATION) (SENTENCE DOCUMENT RECOGNITION (WRITING
FLUENCY/WORD DESIGN (IDEAS (VOICE) CONVENTIONS)
CHOICE) AND CONTENT)
• The most important criteria for
effective technical writing!
• Technical writing is not a mystery
which seeks to create suspense. It
must be clear.
• The ultimate goal of effective
technical writing is to say the
Clarity same thing to multiple readers.
• A tech writing document needs
to have a single reading that the
reader can understand. Unclear
technical writing is bad. Unclear
technical writing can also be
dangerous.
Clarity
• It enables the readers to understand what the
information means to convey.
• Readers need facts, not hazy or imprecise terms, to
make decisions and accomplish tasks.
• Use of specific and concrete words
• Appropriate verbs (use action verb and active voice of the
verb)
Clarity Example
• What don’t we know in this memo?
1. When is the meeting?
2. Where is the meeting?
3. Who is the meeting for?
4. How much information is “very
detailed”?
5. How will the presentation be made?
6. Why is the meeting being held?
7. What does the manager want to be
conveyed about sales?
Checklist for Clarity
• Who is the audience and what will he or she know about
the topic?
• What do you plan to do, want the audience to know, or
want to know yourself ?
• When should the task be completed, or when do you need
an answer?
• Where will the work take place?
• Why is the task important?
• How should the task be performed?
• Means every word counts, is very
important, it saves time and
increases the forcefulness of
writing.
• Conciseness is achieved through
short words.
• So it is good to stay clear, and try
Conciseness to keep the reader reading.
• Example: Please repeat the
sentence again. (5 words) Please
repeat the sentence. (4 words)
Conciseness
Changing Long Words to Short Words
Cognizant Know
Endeavor Try
Domicile Home
Morbidity Death
Terminate End
Other Ways to Be Concise
• Remove redundancy, passive voice, and long
prepositional phrases.
• Means the ease of which the
readers can locate the
information they seek.
• To increase accessibility, include
headings, lists of reports, or a
table of contents.
Accessibility
• Technical writing should use a
page layout that makes it easy for
the reader to understand the text.
Accessibility
• Technical writing should use a page layout that makes
it easy for the reader to understand the text.
Highlighting techniques
Graphics (tables and figures) Varied Font sizes
White space • Bullets
Headings and subheadings 1. Numbered lists
Italics Varied FONT types
Underlining Pictures J
Accessibility
• This aspect is based around the
audience, and how well they
understand the writing.
• If your audience can't understand
your writing, then there will be
no way to adapt to your own
Audience writing.
Recognition • Meaning that if you have written
that the audience can't
understand, then your writing
looks bad and nobody will read
it.
Achieving Audience Recognition
Audience Style Example
High Tech Abbreviations/ Please review the
Peers Acronyms okay. OP and EN Audience
Low Tech
Peers
Abbreviations/
Acronyms need
Please review the
OP (Operating Recognition
definitions Procedure)
Lay No abbreviation/ Please review the
Readers acronyms operating
procedure.
• Accuracy refers to the
truthfulness and variety of a
given statement.
• It basically refers to "getting the
facts straight”.
Accuracy • For example, it is inaccurate to
say that an NFL football field is
50 yards when it is in fact 100
yards.
Accuracy
Effective technical writing must be
correct.
• Use the computer’s spell check.
• Be objective about your own writing.
• Use peer evaluations—other’s see
errors we miss.
• Read it aloud.
• Read it backwards.
End…
Thank you!
