Characteristics of Technical Writing

Technical writing is an important part of everyone's career. Writing well is difficult and time consuming and writing in a technical way about technical subjects even makes it more difficult. People write to propose projects, to document their own actions, to help other understand the research, to analyze and solve problems, to describe procedures and objects. There are six basic properties of Technical writing

1. Clarity
Technical document must convey a single meaning that the reader can understand. They vital communication link among the various employees is usually the report, if this link is weak, the entire project may be jeopardized. Unclear technical writing can be dangerous e.g. unclear instruction on how to operate machinery.

2. Accuracy
Unclear writing can cause many problems and even inaccuracy in the report. Slightest error can confuse or even annoy the reader of the report.

3. Comprehensiveness:
When writing technically, all the information should be provided, its background must be described and clear description of any process, or method of carrying out a specific work, should also be given. It also includes results, conclusions and recommendations.

4. Accessibility:
It means the ease with which the readers can locate the information they seek. To increase Accessibility, include headings and lists in the report. A table of contents, list of illustrations glossary and index are preferred.

5. Conciseness:
Technical writing is meant to be useful. The longer a document is, the more difficult it gets to use it. Even it takes more of the user's time. Conciseness works against clarity and comprehensiveness. Solution to this conflict is to create a balance between the requirements of clarity, conciseness and comprehensiveness.

6. Correctness
Qualities of technical report writing also includes correctnes. Good technical report must also be correct. It. Must be free from grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, and should have appropriate format standard. If a report contains grammatical errors, the reader will doubt the accuracy of the information in the report. Technical writing is meant to convey information and to persuade the audience. To accomplish these goals it must be clear auccurate, easy to access and must be economical and correct. If you mean to write "the three persons: person 1, person 2 and person 3 attended a session" but you use commas instead of the colon, your readers might think 6 people attended the session, not 3. Those components which are usually included in a report in business and industry

1. Letter of Transmittal

The components of a report are not written in the same order in which they appear e.g. the letter of transmittal is the first thing the reader sees, but it is probably the last to be created. It introduces the purpose and content of the report to the principle reader. It gives you an opportunity to emphasize whatever you think, your reader will find particularly in the attached material. It enables you to point out any errors or omission in the material. Transmittal letter contains the following element.

A statement of title and purpose of report. A statement of who authorized the project and when A statement of method used in the project or of the principal results, conclusion and recommendations. An acknowledgement of any assistance you received in preparing the material.

2. The title page

Usual elements are

Title Name and position of writer Name and position of principle reader Date of submission

A good title must be informative. It. answers two basic questions

1. What is the subject of the report 2. What type of report is it? E.g. sea pollution - control devices

Define the type of report by using a generic term such as analysis, recommendations e.g summary, review etc. For a simple title page, centre the title (typed in full capital letter) about a third of the way down the page, then add the readers and writer's position, the organizations name and date.

3. The abstract
Its like a brief technical summary, usually not more than 200 words of the report. Its directed to readers who are familiar with the technical subject and need to know whether to read the full report or not. This can use technical terminology and refer to advanced concepts. Basic types of abstract are descriptive and informative abstracts. The descriptive abstract sometime called topical or table of contents abstract. It does not provide the import results, conclusion or recommendations. It lists the topic covered giving equal coverage to each. The informative abstract states the problems the scope and methods, and the major results, conclusion or recommendations.

4. The table of contents

It enables different readers to turn to specific pages to find the information they want. Well organized report becomes ineffective if table of contents, is not clear. T.O.C provide only guide to report's structure, coverage and pagination. The headings that appear in the report are listed in T.O.C For effective T.O.C make sure the report has effective headings.

5. The list of illustrations

It is a T.O.C for the figures and tables of a report. If the report contains figures but not tables, it is called the list of figures But if the report contains tables but not figures so is called the list of tables only

List of illustrations may be on the same page as the table of contents, or may be on the separate page. If it begins on a separate page, it should be listed in the table of contents.

6. The executive summary

Sometimes called executive overview or the management summary. It is a one page condensation of a report. Managers dont need a detailed and deep understanding of various projects undertaken in their organization because of limitations in time and specialization. The background of the project is also discussed clearly herein. The specific problem that is to be solved through the project is clearly discussed; also the conclusion and recommendations are discussed in a full separate paragraph.

7. The glossary and list of symbols

a gloss is an alphabetic list of definitions. It is useful if you are addressing a multiple audience that includes readers who will not be familiar with the technical vocabulary used in the report. An asterisk or any other notation can be used along the word to tell the audience that the word is defined in glossary. It is generally placed at the end of the report just before the appendix. Though if the glossary is a brief one, so can be placed right after the table of contents. A list of symbols is structured like glossary, but rather than defining words and phrases, it defines the symbols and abbreviations used in the report. Like glossary, the list of symbols may be placed before the appendices or after the table of content.

8. The appendix

An appendix is any section that follows the body of the report (and the list of references or bibliography, glossary or list of symbols). Appendices provide information that is too bulky to be presented in the body or that will interest only a small number of readers. For conciseness in the report, this information is separated from the body. Examples of the kind of material that are usually found in the appendix include maps, large technical diagrams or charts, computations, test data and texts of supporting documents. Appendices are usually lettered, rather than numbered and are listed in the table of contents.