Last week, we have been giving you gyan on web content writing. This week, we will talk about the art of Technical Writing. It may seem weird to you when we say technical writing is an art as this form of business writing does not require an inherent creativity. But technical writing is an art. Its aim is to communicate specific ideas in simple and clear words; in other words, in a very crisp language.
The first and the foremost thing in technical writing is to understand your reader before you begin. Ask yourself: Who will read it? Once you get the answer, focus on the key points that your reader will ingest. Based on your reader and the key points, organize the document to support those points. For each key point, explain both what and why starting with what.
Convey the main ideas in the beginning and expand on these points through the document. For each section, write a brief introduction that explains what its organization is. You can also keep the introduction part to write after completing the document as it becomes easier to write because you already know the structure and the outlook of the document.
If you find it difficult to begin, imagine a scenario where you are explaining the key idea of the document verbally to another person. Now write the imagined conversation focusing on the main points. The main idea is to begin, and you can definitely rewrite it later. Decide which sections your document should contain and write a little outline of each section, which indicates the subsections. Later, expand that into a topic for each paragraph.
Make your writing to the point. Delete anything that does not support your point. Examine each sentence and if it does not make a single, clear point that strengthens the paragraph, delete it. You might need to repeat this entire process multiple times, keeping a fresh perspective on the document.
Passive voice is a big NO. Always prefer singular to plural number. Use past tense when describing an experiment or some other action that occurred in the past. This is because the reader is experiencing the paper in real time; the paper is like a conversation between the authors and the reader.
In our next post, we give you some tips to improve your technical writing skills, by avoiding some common mistakes. Keep reading our blogs.
