Technical Writing: Instructions

Technical Instructions are one of the most important types of technical documents.  They are used to help readers accomplish a specific task or use a particular product.  If you are involved in helping people do any sort of task, whether its building something, or preparing food, or using your product, you will likely need to create this document.  In the course this project focuses on building something, but the document could also be modified to help users in other areas.

Technical Instructions contains several sections including:

·         Warnings and Cautions

·         Materials needed

·         Instructions

·         Troubleshooting

Some similar documents (such as Operation and Maintenance Manuals) may also have other sections, such as a Table of Contents, an index, or sections on how to use the product (rather than just assemble it).

Technical Writing: Grantham Review

This post is a review of what I learned in the Grantham Technical Writing Class.

Other posts in this series about Technical Writing can be found here:

https://questeroftruth.blogspot.com/p/technical-writing.html

I have been doing some form of Technical Writing for eight or nine years.  For various projects at my current job, I have written and revised Operation and Maintenance Manuals, created training documents for internal training, and worked on other project documents such as proposals, system evaluations, radio feasibility documents, and more.  So I was hoping that this class would help me fill in some of the gaps in my writing ability.  I have done a lot of writing other than Technical Writing, mostly academic, for example, for my History BA, I had to write a thesis, which ended up being roughly 90 pages. 

Technical Writing: Marketing project

Marketing materials are technical documents that give potential customers a reason for choosing your product, service, or company. In this post, I will explain some information about marketing materials, then walk you through the design and creation of one of the projects done for this class.

Generally, companies that are not new want to be doing one of three things to expand their business, either 1) market a new (but related) product to their existing customers, or 2) market existing products or services to new customers, or 3) market existing products or services more effectively to existing customers (who aren’t using them yet).  The reason for this is pragmatic: new products being marketed to new customers take the most effort to go from an idea to returning profit.  Once you have services and products to promote to new customers, the next step is to ask some questions that will guide you in creating the content for your marketing material.

Technical Writing: Overview

This is the first post in a series of posts about Technical Writing.  These posts were required for a class I am taking at University of Arkansas Grantham (uagrantham.edu) for their online EET BS degree. The goal of these posts is to give an overview of what, why, who, and how of Technical Writing.

Technical Writing is the process of writing any document or content for the purpose of conveying technical information rather than academic or fictional information.  It includes content such as a resume or professional website, which conveys technical information about a single person to potential employers or clients. It includes technical marketing materials and instructions designed to convey information to consumers or users of a product, service, or idea.  It also includes content related to a single project or problem that a client is having, such as problem statements, feasibility reports, proposals, and progress reports.