Technical Communication

What is Technical Writing? Communicates specific & factual info to a defined audience.

Why do it? Inform, instruct, describe, explain processes and mechanisms.

Who does it? Engineers, scientists and technicians as necessary part of daily work.

Why do we need it? With rising complexity, the greater the need for direct, simple and clear communication.

Readers come first. Consider reader before content, approach, style. Reader is either technical, managerial, and/or general.

Express vs Impress. More important to convey ideas than impress with vocabulary.

Clarity. Shorter sentences and active language.

Self-Test Quiz

1. Technical writing is meant to be understood only by highly educated engineers, scientists and technicians

2. Concise writing gives only needed information to the reader.

3. Clear writing avoids intricate detail because of its tendency to confuse or be misunderstood.

4. Highly complex subjects call for a highly complex approach.

5. Engineers and technicians don't require definition of terms and concepts that non-technical readers require.

6. Managerial readers may or may not be also technical.

7. General readers are the easiest for whom to write.

8. Personal tone in technical writing comes from using active voice and adds clarity to the message.

9. The active voice is preferred over the passive voice.

10. In highly complex documents, longer sentences are preferred to shorter sentences.

Answer Key:
1F, 2T, 3F, 4F, 5T, 6T, 7F, 8T, 9T, 10F