Friday, August 15, 2008

What is Technical Writing

In 20 words or fewer
Technical writing is creating documents that help someone install, deploy, configure or use a product or a service.

In 50 words or fewer
Technical writing is creating documents that help someone install, deploy, configure or use a product or a service. It results in the creation of things such as user manuals, admin guides, instruction booklets and help systems, but not of business proposals, white papers, case studies, and so on.

In 100 words or fewer
Technical writing is creating documents that help someone install, deploy, configure or use a product or a service. It results in the creation of things such as user manuals, admin guides, instruction booklets and help systems, but not of business proposals, white papers, case studies, and so on. However, the distinction between technical writing deliverables and general business deliverables is getting increasingly blurred. These days, technical writers are also called upon to create or edit marketing collaterals, press releases, internal training tutorials, computer-based training material, and so on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe the idiom is: "100 words or less"; not "fewer".

Cheers from Canada,

Anindita Basu said...

Bien sûr, Yves! But, I did this on purpose - in technical documentation, the convention is "less" for unquantifiable stuff and "fewer" for that which can be quantified. Going by such an yardstick, I thought I'd break free of the idiomatic expression "In 10 words or less". Mainly because I get mad at supermarkets that have check-out counters labelled "5 items or less".

Anonymous said...

And what does technical writing mean for a Technical Writer? Personally for you?

Being several years in this profession I'd like to find colleagues that still pocess the enthusiasm :) Many pro TWs have already moved to other tasks.


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