A Short Course in Technical Writing

There are several ways to define a technical writer. However, the simplest definition that comes to my mind is that a technical writer writes technical documentation that it is accurate and easy for the user to comprehend.

When I started as technical writer, I did not know where to begin and how to start writing a good document. Most beginners face these uncertainties.

Nancy Halligan’s Web site, www.technical-writing-course.com,addresses most of these issues. This Web site lists simple steps on how to write a good technical report. These steps help you write a quality technical report and all kinds of technical documents, such as user guides, white papers, and operations manual.

This Web site covers everything you ever want to know about writing a good technical document. This Web site also serves as a short course to help students, teachers, and beginners with communicating complex ideas in a simple and clear manner.

Topics such as Planning, Using correct grammar, Using diagrams and flowcharts, and Testing your document are covered in-depth. These topics enable those interested to experiment with the basics of technical writing.

According to this Web site, a technical writer’s primary task is to understand the target audience, and then plan to decide the type of documents to create. Planning before writing is an essential step. You should first state the purpose of your document before you start writing it.

Documentation should not make the user want to read through it as quickly as possible. It’s the task of a technical writer to make the documentation as simple, precise, and interesting to the user. The main reason why a user does not understand the documentation is hasty writing. Spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors further add to the problem. Even though the best writers are prone to these mistakes, a simple step to rectify this is by editing your own document. Read through the entire document after you finish writing it, and then perform a usability test for the document.

I recommend this Web site to all technical writers. This is definitely a one-stop refresher that teaches and reminds us of some tips and tricks.

Mandeep Gill is a Technical Writer with Quark Systems.