Technical Writing & Presentation

BEE – 7A
Technical Writing & Presentation

Course Instructor: Engr. Muhammad Faisal Siddiqui

LECTURE #01,02,03
 Introduction to Course

 Course Learning Objectives

 Weekly Lecture Plan

 Assessment Procedure

 Guidelines for Assignment and Quizzes

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 Lecture Outline

Find what they need

Understand what they find
Use what they understand appropriately

Create a document in which readers can find, understand, and use

content appropriately…. Its all about Technical Writing

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 Lecture Outline

 Introduction

 What is a report?

 Purpose of Technical Report Writing

 Characteristics of Technical Report Writing

 Kinds of Reports

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 About Technical Writing

• Communication is part of the life of ever creature on this planet.

• How that communication is carried out however is varied, and different types of
communication are suitable based upon the type of information that needs to be conveyed.

• One specific area of communication involves transmitting, understanding and knowledge of a

technical subject to others that need to know the basics and details of the subject in question.

• In written form, this type of communication is called technical writing.

• It is the type of everyday writing that surrounds us at home, workplace, and community.

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 Introduction

• "Technical" comes from the Greek techne, which simply means "skill".

• Technical writing is the presentation of information that helps the reader solve a particular
problem.

• Technical communicators write, design, and/or edit proposals, manuals, web pages, lab reports,
newsletters, and many other kinds of professional documents.

• While technical writers need to have good computer skills, they do not necessarily have to
write about computers all their lives.

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 Introduction

• When technical writers approach a new piece of technology, they are inwardly observing their
own lack of knowledge.

• As they interact with and learn the software, they identify the information needs of the
software users.

• They must be able to communicate well with programmers and customers, and extract
information from them in a professional and personable manner.

• A technical writer's primary tool is the language.

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Introduction

“The fundamental purpose of scientific discourse is not the mere

presentation of information and thought but rather its actual
communication. It does not matter how pleased an author might be to
have converted all the right data into sentences and paragraphs; it matters
only whether a large majority of the reading audience accurately
perceives what the author had in mind.”
George Gopen and Judith Swan The Science of Scientific Writing

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 How is Technical Writing Different?
• The information is organized, presented and communicated in a specific format.

• The writing is concise, clear and accurate.

• The writing takes into account the audience’s needs, biases and prior understanding.

• The writing presents information to help readers solve a problem or gain a better understanding
of a situation.

• The writing conveys technical, complex, or specialized information in a way that is easy for a
non-technical reader to understand.

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 What, Why, How?
Acquiring technical writing skills means the need to accurately
communicate thoughts, ideas, information, and messages in writing; and
create documents such as letters, directions, specifications, manuals,
reports, presentations, graphs, flow charts, etc.

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 Technical Writing for Engineers

•An engineer’s view is necessarily product-centric. Here are few questions that
helps in technical writing:

–How has this feature been implemented?

–How does the user interact with this feature?
–What information does the user need before they using this feature?
–What information does the user have after they using the feature?

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 How is Technical Writing Different?

Technical writing is

• Objective

• Direct

• Clearly defined

• Precise

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 How is Technical Writing Different?

• Technical writing achieves precision with definitions and descriptions photographs and
drawings numerical data and mathematical equations.

• Tables and charts

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 Why should you care about writing?
• You must communicate your work to the world.

• If people don’t know about it, they won’t use it.

• Increase probability of adoption.

• Clear writing requires clear thinking; muddled writing is a sign of muddled thought.

• Be kind to your readers good writing can be a joy; bad writing is agony.

• These skills transfer to other endeavors.

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 Technical Writing Practices

• Planning: Understand the task before you Begin

• Clarity: Define the unfamiliar
• Shortness: Use words efficiently and avoid redundancy
• Simplicity: Use details wisely
• Word Choice: Avoid complexity
• Diction: The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing Correct
language
• Organization: Arrangement of parts
• Visual: Design and graphics
• Commitment: Process and Habit
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 Essential Skills of a Technical Writer?
• Technical writing is a natural partner to academic writing.

• It is descriptive, creative, and expository, but the format is different and the standards are
higher.

• Technical writing requires 100% accuracy.

• Technical writing is effective when:

1. The writer communicates precisely his/her intended meaning to his/her reader.

2. The writing fulfils its goal or intended purpose.

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 Essential Skills of a Technical Writer?
There are five important skills or characteristics which are "musts" for the technical writer:
1. Facility with technology: You must have the potential to grasp intended technology.

2. Ability to write clearly: The essential skill of any technical communicator is to disambiguate.

3. Talent in showing ideas graphically: People understand better when you can communicate
your ideas visually.

4. Patience in problem-solving/troubleshooting: Unless you have patience, you’ll never make it.

5. Ability to interact with Subject Matter Experts (SME): Interacting with SMEs is one of the
most overlooked skills in technical writing.

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Academic Writing Vs Technical Writing?

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 Examples of Technical Writing
• Action Plans
• Advertisement
• Agenda
• Audit Report
• Book Review
• Brochure
• Budget
• Business Letter
• Business Plan
• Catalog
• Contract
• Critique

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 Examples of Technical Writing
•Data Book or Display
•Description
•Diagram, Chart, or Graph
•Editorial
•Email
•Feasibility Report
• Field Test Report
• Incident Report
• Informational Form
• Informational Poster
• Informative Summary

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 What do Tech Writers create?
• User’s manuals

• System manuals

• Step-by-step procedures

• On-line help

• Training manuals

• Quick-reference guides

• How-to video scripts

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Examples of Technical Writing
•Data Book or Display
•Description
•Diagram, Chart, or Graph
•Editorial
•Email
•Feasibility Report
• Field Test Report
• Incident Report
• Informational Form
• Informational Poster
• Informative Summary

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What is a Report?

“Taking complicated subject matter and transforming it into easy-to-understand information for
the reader”

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Key Characteristics of Technical Writing
Clear - Technical writing presents information clearly, leaving little to no room for
misunderstanding. It requires the use of clear, concise sentences.

Straightforward - This type of writing is straightforward; it requires relaying information in a

way that is direct and straight to the point, without the use of literary devices.

Precise - The language used in technical writing should be very precise, describing objects and
procedures in an exact manner.

Easily understood - Effective technical writers avoid words that people may not understand and
will avoid an eloquent writing style.

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Key Characteristics of Technical Writing

Denotative meanings - This type of writing relies on the denotative meanings of words to ensure
that misunderstandings don’t occur due to differing interpretations based on connotation.

Detailed - Technical writing is very detailed and informative, leaving nothing to the imagination.
The perfect example of technical writing is a textbook. Most textbooks describe the subject matter
as fully as possible.

Very structured - Technical writing is very structured. This type of writing needs to have an
obvious composition that makes it easy for readers to follow along.

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Key Characteristics of Technical Writing

Skimmable - Technical documentation should be designed with skimmability in mind, so it’s

easy for readers to scan through the full document and easily find information they need.
Technical writers should incorporate meaningful, descriptive headings and include a thorough
table of contents and/or index.

Problem solving focus - Technical documents should be created with problem solving in mind.
Readers use these documents to learn how to perform certain tasks or gain technical information,
so they should be easy to follow and organized in a way that’s easy to refer back to as questions
come up.

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Kind of Reports

Report

Formal Report Informal Report

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Kind of Reports (Informal)

The informal report functions to inform, analyze, and recommend.

• It usually takes the form of a memo, letter or a very short international document like a monthly
financial report, monthly activities report, research and development report, etc.

• This report differs from the formal report in length and formality.

• It is written according to organization style and rules, but usually does not include the
preliminary (front) and supplemental (back) material.

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Kind of Reports (Informal)
• Progress report

• Sales activity report

• Personnel evaluation

• Financial report

• Feasibility report

• Literature review

• Credit report

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Kind of Reports (Formal)

• The formal report is the collection and interpretation of data and information.

• The formal report is complex and used at an official level.

• It is often a written account of a major project.

Examples of subject matter include new technologies, the advisability of launching a new project
line, results of a study or experiment, an annual report, or a year old review of developments in
the field.

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Kind of Reports (Formal)

• Informational reports

• Analytical reports

• Recommendation reports

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Conclusion

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