What is technical writing?

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  everybody. Today, we're going to look at what technical writing

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  is and how it's different from other types of writing

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  you may have done in the past.

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  Now in high school and in freshman English, you focus

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  primarily probably on writing essays.

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  This is a type of writing called rhetoric.

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  It's kind of an all purpose writing style.

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  It can have any topic and be aimed at any

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  type of reader.

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  The writing you will do is an engineer is different.

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  You will use fewer adjectives and more graphics, for one

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  thing, and you won't write many essays.

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  But engineering writing, which is technical writing, is more than

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  just a style of language or a type of document.

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  It's a different way of thinking about writing, so let's

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  look at what technical writing is.

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  This is how I define technical writing.

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  It's a factual genre that conveys specific information on specialized

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  topics to a defined audience, using standardised formats that is

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  determined by both the content and the audience.

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  There's a lot going on there.

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  Let's unpack that technical writing is factual.

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  Everything you say must be a fact were supported by

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  valid and relevant information.

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  That sounds easy, but It's trickier than you think, because

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  you have to consider every word carefully to make sure

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  you aren't suggesting or implying something that you can't document

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  or measure or support.

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  Technical writing conveys specific information, so this is about accurate

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  accuracy and precision with words and with data and about

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  how much of that information that you put into a

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  document. The goal is to leave the reader with almost

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  no questions about what you've written.

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  Technical writing focuses on specialized content.

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  You're not gonna walk into work one day and say,

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  I feel like writing a report today.

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  You're always going to have a purpose and a particular

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  topic that you're writing about that is always driven by

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  the fact that you're an engineer and that you work

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  for a particular company or in a particular context.

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  It's always about that discipline or your environment.

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  So you're going to be doing business writing like correspondents

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  or writing resumes, and you will certainly right reports and

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  proposals, which we think of his sort of classical technical

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  writing. And you may even do case studies or white

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  papers, which are kind of fall more on the academic.

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  And, uh, that might show up in I SC magazine.

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  Technical writing has a defined audience.

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  Audience is important in all good writing, but it's especially

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  crucial in technical writing.

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  Identifying exactly who your reader is affects the type of

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  words you use, the level of detail you provide, even

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  how you present the information.

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  So one of the first things you will do in

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  preparing any technical document is think about who's going to

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  read this and how are they going to use it

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  and where are they going to use it?

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  And that's something that will look at this semester and

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  finally, is the format.

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  Formats in technical writing are standardized.

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  They're easily recognizable, and they're driven by the topic and

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  the audience, so they're usually structured in a particular way.

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  A memo has a particular heading style.

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  A research report has a structure usually that is called

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  Imran, which is introduction methods, results and discussion.

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  And if you're working with safety information, you're gonna present

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  it differently, depending on who your audience is.

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  So if you're working with the public, you might use

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  infographics and a laminated card, which makes that information more

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  accessible to them.

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  So that is technical writing Let's recap what we've looked

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  at today.

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  Technical writing is factual.

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  It works with specific information and specialized topics with a

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  defined audience using standardised formats that are determined by the

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  topic and the audience.

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  This is the kind of writing that you're going to

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  do as an engineer, and it's what you're going to

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  learn how to dio this semester.