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Lecture#8 What Is Technical Writing? Technical writing is the practice of researching information about a particular topic and coming up with an accurate and simplified article. The term technical may refer to technology and other related subjects about it. Thus technical writing is more often linked to engineering, computer hardware, computer software, aeronautics, biotechnology, electronics, finance, robotics, chemistry, and others. What Is The Goal Of Technical Writing? The goal of technical writing is to transform complicated and hard to understand topics into simpler and more comprehensive piece of writing. The article should be useful and accurate. Obviously, the primary and chief goal of technical writing is to inform a targeted audience about a technology. One good example of technical writing is composing a manuals guide. Creating a technological machine can be very complex and the manuals guide should be readily understandable by its readers as they do not have the same level of expertise to the people who created the machine. What Are The Criteria Of Good Technical Writing? Like any other types of writing, good technical writing should be written with extensive language skills. This means that the document should be without any errors in grammar that may give the real meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or the entire chapter. A good technical writing is its relevance to its targeted audience. It is rare for technical writing to create a document with a broad scope and audience. The created document should be written in the same level as the understanding of the readers

Above all, technical writers should be an expert of their field. The writer should be an authority and not just some amateur writer who do not have the essential background about a particular subject. Definition of Technical Writing Technical writing transfers information about a situation, product, service, or concept, by written, oral, or visual means, to audiences of varying levels of technical knowledge, so that each member of the audience clearly understands the message. Technical writing

Transfers information, utilitarian or occupational, employing appropriate vocabularies and styles Is related to the workplace Seeks to produce action/reaction in or for a clearly defined audience Seeks to approach a single meaning Is practical writing done in response to a request, an invitation, or a need, for a specific named audience Has optimal readability and special packaging Uses effective language to encourage productive relationships between technologies and their users Presents information within the world of work for a specific audience, purpose, and application.

Steps of technical writing 1. Logical flow there should be logical flow in writing

2. Clarity There should be Clarity in your flow in writing 3. Conciseness Concise your writing so that it gives good solid and clear meaning. 4. Spelling incorrect spelling and poor grammar can confuse the reader. They may even cause them to stop reading 5. Punctuation Why is this so important? Because even a lowly comma out of place can completely change the sense. 6. Stylistic issues Headings and styles: Check that the typeface, numbering and style for chapter headings and heading levels are consistent. Check that the headings are always in sequence. Consider how you are going to lay out the contents page.

7 Proofreading Go through the text two three times it may reduce the rick of error 9 Maintain contact If you are editing another authors work, you may be able to talk to them directly. This will help to avoid wasted effort on your part going down the wrong path, and lessen the offence potentially caused to the author of major editing.