Lesson 3 on Approaches to Technical Writing.pptx

Approaches to Technical

1. Approaches to Technical Writing English 014 – Technical Writing Communication

2. Recap

3. Writing as a process

4. Pre-writing Stage Define your audience. To create effective content ( i.e , content that will be useful to your audience), you need to understand who they are. When you understand your audience, you'd be able to write content that resonates with, impacts, and offers them a better reading experience. To define your audience, ask yourself:  Who am I writing this piece of content for? Are they beginner developers, mid-level developers, product managers, designers?

5. Pre-writing Stage Define the goal of your technical content. Every piece of content you write should have a goal; otherwise, you'll write something that doesn't deliver any value because your points will be all over the place. Just like defining your audience, defining the goal of every piece of content helps provide you with more direction and focus. Producer’s goal – why are you writing this content? Reader’s goal – what are the pressing questions that my reader would ask?

6. Pre-writing Stage Writing an outline. An outline is like a map that guides you to a destination — without which you'll end up missing your way. An outline can be described as the barebones structure of your content. It allows you to narrow down your ideas to the main points that you need to cover, ensuring that you deliver on the goal of that specific piece of content without deviating.

7. Pre-writing Stage Do your research. Research is a continuous process when writing. From the moment you decide what to write on, to defining your target audience, to drawing up an outline, you must conduct research to gain perspective. The level of research you do will reflect on how confident you'll feel about writing that particular piece of content.

8. Pre-writing Stage

9. During Writing Stage Write the first draft. The goal of the first draft is to help you get all of the ideas in your head onto paper (within the constraints of your outline and target audience, of course). Write down all of the ideas that come to you in relation to your outline. It doesn't have to look good or even be moderately ready for publishing. Write, then fix later.

10. During Writing Stage Rewrite the first draft. Rewrite every paragraph and section with the key ideas positioned first,   to promote readability. Remove anything that doesn't support your main point or will distract from key points. Verify that there are no gaps in your writing and that you've provided all the information the reader needs to arrive at the goal set out at the beginning.

11. During Writing Stage Fine tune and polish.

12. During Writing Stage

13. Post-Writing Stage Ask for feedback. You can either stop at the fine-tuning stage and move on to the publishing phase or ask for feedback from an extra pair of eyes (like a friend) if you're writing for yourself. If you're working in a professional setting, you'd usually send this to your clients or superiors for feedback and then try to incorporate their suggestions.

14. Post-Writing Stage Publish and share. After you've incorporated feedback, it's now time to publish. You'd typically transfer the content from your drafting location (google doc, dropbox , e.t.c ) to the publishing medium (code editor, markdown files, CMS). Then share the excellent content you've written to social media so other people can see it. What is the essence of writing if you’re not going to share it?

15. Post-writing Stage

16. Writing as a process:

17. When you write a technical paper, remember these:

18. Checkpoint:

19. Reference: Ikechukwu, L. (2024, March 19).  The technical writing process: How to do technical writing like a pro . Everything Technical Writing. https:// www.everythingtechnicalwriting.com /the-technical-writing-process/