ENGL 1023- Advanced Technical Communication | 1

LEARNING MODULE
English 1023 (Advanced Technical
Communication)
AY 2023-2024

Lesson 2: Importance/Purpose of Technical Communication

Topic: Types of writings required in Technical Professions, Basic Principles of Good

Technical Communication, Properties of Technical Writing, and
Qualities of the Technical Communicator

Learning Outcomes: At the end of this module, you are expected to:

1. Identify the different types of technical writing

2. Reflect on the given example of technical document
3. Enumerate the qualities of technical communicator
4. Show how technical communication is done in one‘s home
5. Recognize the basic principles of good technical writing

LEARNING CONTENT

Introduction:

In the first week of your

module, it was clearly discussed what
technical communication is. So, we will
just have a recap of its definition. When
we say technical writing, it is a form of
written communication – especially in
engineering and other applied sciences
in – which scientific, business, and
legal ideas, concepts, and data are
presented in an objective, accurate,
and logicalmanner. Is it also defined
as the
practice of documenting processes, such as software manuals or instructional materials. In short, technical
writing is a type of writing where the author is writing about a particular subject that requires direction,
instruction, or explanation. With the different definitions of Technical Writing, we are going to tackle about
the Types of Writings in Technical Professions.

Have you ever submitted a resume for a job, written an email to your dean, created a PowerPoint
presentation or written directions for a friend on how to use an item? Then you've already written a technical
document. Technical writing includes a wide range of documents used to inform or persuade a target
audience with a specific need.

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 Technical documents include memos, graphics, letters, fliers, reports, newsletters, presentations,
web pages, brochures, proposals, instructions, reviews, press releases, catalogs, advertisements,
handbooks, business plans, policies and procedures, specifications, instructions, style guides, agendas and
so forth. There are so many types of technical documents. It may be easiest to understand the differences
in them by grouping them into three main categories: traditional technical documents, end-user documents
and technical marketing communications.

Lesson Proper:

TYPES OF TECHNICAL WRITINGS

1. Traditional Technical Writing

- While traditional technical writing sounds broad, pieces of content within this category are
specifically written for professional audiences. These experts rely on traditional technical writing
for targeted research papers, programming guidelines, and repair manuals.

a. Science and Medical Papers

▪ Research results can be hard to explain, so scientists collaborate with technical
writers to interpret and organize findings. These papers act as learning resources
for practitioners to understand procedures and results. As with any form of
research, technical writers ensure that proper credibility is given in the text.

b. Professional Reports and Review

▪ In addition to writing for scientists and doctors, technical writers assist in creating
reports for business growth and educational institutions. Examples of professional
reports include project and business status reports, legal case reviews, and
personnel activity reports.

2. End-User Documentation
- Almost every product you purchase has a written explanation of operation. These ―how-to‖
pieces are written to help users understand and operate products correctly. Since end-user
documentation requires clear and concise instruction, it‘s important to create content that breaks
down technological terms to layman‘s terms.

a. User Help Guides

▪ When software product users have questions that needs specific answers, they
turn to user help guides. These are written to provide clear and sensible answers
to common questions that may develop as use of software programs continue.
User help guides are broken down into sections depending on the type of ‗help‘
needed – allowing users to read ahead or re-read information to make their
understanding of a product stronger.

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EXA
MPLE
:

b. Product Manuals
▪ Product manuals are those small booklets that highlight a product‘s main features,
general maintenance, and basic operation. It contains writtenguidelines informing
the audience how to use a certain product.

EXAMPLE:

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 c. Assembly Guidelines
▪ Since assembly guidelines tell users how to physically set up a product, technical
writers are responsible for writing clear and user-friendly, step-by-step
instructions. It‘s important for these instructions to be written in a way that ensure
users can accurately assemble products.

EXAMPLE:

3. Technical Marketing Content

- Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable,
relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately,
to drive profitable customer action. The primary goal of marketing content, is to convince the
reader to buy a product or service.

a. Brochures
▪ Brochures take users to a deeper level of understanding and appeal through clear
descriptions, functions, and uses of a product. It is intended to provide customers
with additional information on corporate offerings, and are used by sales personnel
to persuade customers to purchase a product. The brochure – also called a data
sheet, product brief or solution brief – describes the main features of the product,
any specifications for its use and is usually accompaniedby either a picture of the
product or an architectural design, illustrating the solution.
EXAMPLE:

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 We are done with the different types of technical writing needed in a specific profession. Now, are
to move on to our next topic which is about the Basic Principles of Good Technical Writing. Have you ever
wonder how do technical writers write direct and specific instructions? What principles do they follow to make
technical writings? What are the qualities of technical writer to make a good technical instructions?

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF GOOD TECHNICAL WRITING

Technical
writing is one of the
most important
elements ofa
company's
customer support
strategy, and these
five principles that
technical writers
must bear in mind to
be successful.
Inattention to any of
these five areas
often leads to a
substandard
document and
dissatisfaction on
the client end.

Mills and Walter (1980: 13-14) identified the basic principles as follows:

1. Always bear in mind a specific reader, real or imaginary, when you are writing a report; and
always assume that he is intelligent but uninformed.

• An awareness of who is going to read a user guide, the knowledge gap that the user
guide is filling and the delivery method of the guide all play important roles.

2. Before you start to write, always decide what the exact purpose of your report is; and make
sure that every paragraph, every sentence, every word makes a clear contribution to that
purpose and makes it at the right time.

• Before beginning any writing task, the writer analyzes audience and identifies the
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purpose for the document. The writer asks following questions about the audience:

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 ✓ Who will read the document?
✓ What are their biases?
✓ What are technical writer‘s ethical responsibilities when
communicating this to audience?
• With regard to purpose, technical writers ask: what should this document
accomplish? What should it do? Should it:
✓ Inform
✓ Request
✓ Instruct
✓ Suggest
✓ Order
✓ Report
✓ Reply
✓ Analyse/ critique
✓ Compare
3. Use language that is simple, concrete, and familiar.

• Different types of writing have different audiences, and each audience has its own
linguistic needs, which the writer respects with tone and word choice.

4. At the beginning and end of every section of your report, check your writing according to
this principle: First you tell the reader what you‘re going to tell him, then you tell him what
you‘ve told him.
5. Make your report attractive to look at.

After knowing the basic principles in technical writing, I know that you are pondering on the question, ―How
can I make my technical written work attractive? What are the features needed to make a technical document
accurate to its audience?‖ Let us answer all your questions by discussing our next topic!

CHARACTERISTICS OR PROPERTIES OF TECHNICAL WRITING

The following descriptive words sum up all the characteristics or properties of technical writing that
experts or authoritative people named in the book (Technical Writing in this Era Globalization and Modern
Technology) clearly expressed in their books.

ACCURATE

A technical written work is accurate when it deals with the facts that are completely true, instead of
things whose identity, appearance, or measurements are so difficult to determine. An accurate report uses
words, sentences, numbers, or figures that exactly express what the written work intends to convey (Bantin,
2008). It avoids the frequent use of expressions for hedging such as may, perhaps, maybe, seem,
apparently, would, etc. Using an expression that conveys one and only one meaning instead of an
ambiguous term with multiple meaning will help readers get an easy and quick understanding of the whole
composition (Ling, 2004).

CLEAR
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 Your written work is clear if, on one reading, your readers are able to get a quick understanding of
the main message or point of the whole composition. You can easily achieve this if you always remember
that clear writing always results from clear thinking, as well as from the use of simple, concise, specific, and
grammatically correct language structures. How the person around you express themselves or how you
express the ideas as they come to your mind serves as your guide or pattern in writing things on the paper.

For the sake of clarity, it is important too, that you apply in your work all the principles of good
sentence construction like parallelism, consistency of tense, dangling modifiers, split infinitive, choppy
sentences, run-on sentences, comma splice, wordiness, and so on. Applying the qualities of a good
paragraph writing such as unity, coherence, and emphasis are likewise essential to making your technical
written work appear clear to your readers. (Gustavi, 2008; and Marsh, 2005)

FORMAL

In technical writing, you cannot just write anything you like in any way you want on your writing paper,
because some writing standards underlie the structure, pattern, format, and language of this kind of writing.
You have to adhere to these agreed upon technical writing rules because your readers judge the value or
reputation of your output based on the how you conform to the conventions governing this kind of writing.

GRAPHICAL

Graphs like tablets, charts, figures, diagrams, maps, pictures, and other illustrations are absolutely
necessary in technical writing. This is so because this kind of writing deals with topics that are technical;
meaning, it deals with things appealing only to certain group of people, or uses words expressing specialized
meanings or ideas known only to a specific set of people. Considering that this nature of technical writing
makes the technical work not readable to all types of readers in this world, you then have to include in your
work non-prose materials like graphs to stress, clarify, simplify, or sum up ideas which you textually present
in your written compositions. (Bertoline, 2009)

OBJECTIVE

This characteristic of technical writing is shown by any written work of yours that avoids revealing
your individual thinking, personal meaning, or emotional attitude about your subject matter. Whatever
understanding you have about your written work comes from outside yourself; meaning, from the results of
your environmental observations or sensory experiences. Avoiding to include in your technical paper, your
inner thoughts, sentiments or feelings means adopting an impartial or impersonal stand or attitude towards
what you‘ve written.

This is what others call as the ―You Attitude‖ or ―Scientific Attitude‖, whereby, in your writing, your
focus is on your reader‘s point of view rather than on your views as the writer. The following are some
ways to maintain an objective or impersonal tone your technical written work.

1. Use passive voice instead of active voice structures.

2. Use third-person point of view by using words like his/her, they, or the user, instead of the
personalized first person point of view like I, We, Me, Ours, and the like.
3. Downplay the subject or personal nature of the text by avoiding the use of emotive words
like dissatisfied, uninteresting, or undignified.

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 However, some experts with the modern view on technical writing argued that adopting a modern
view of technical writing means humanizing technical writing; that is, feeling free to use personal
pronouns to arouse the readers‘ involvement or interest in what they are reading.

PRACTICAL

Technical writing is practical if it results in a written output that you can apply, use, or carry out in
your day-to-day living. It does not mainly deal with scenarios or situations that you can just imagine or ponder
on, but also tackles up things you can practice in your everyday life situations like designing, constructing,
repairing, selling, travelling, buying, bidding, inquiring, cooking, painting, and many others.

PROCEDURAL

Being a formal and scientific way of writing whereby rules or conventions determine the
appropriateness of your written output, technical writing adheres to a particular course of writing acts. It
presents facts and information in a systematic or methodical manner. Here, you act like a scientist following
a certain procedure or a step-by-step method in proving your point about your subject matter. For instance,
first you have to identify and analyse your problem, collect data about it, and present your conclusions,
discoveries, or findings about the object of your study.

SPECIAL

Writing something to cater to a specific set of people rather than to any group of people using
expressions quite understandable and familiar only to this specific set of readers, not to all kinds of people,
is what makes technical writing special. Inclined to be exclusive and selective of its topic, language,
methodology, and readers, this kind of writing is special, unique, or extra different from the other modes of
writing.

DIVERSIONARY

Considering technical writing as on-the-job writing that is prone to extensive exposure to multicultural
clients, co-workers, cross-cultural or multilingual communication brought about by globalization through the
internet or the Email, you come to think of this kind of writing as one that will lead you to various topic, ideas,
people, methodologies, concerns, purposes, formats, language, etc. It has some aspects or features that
are as diverse or varied as the different kinds of jobs available to all kinds of people all over the world.
Though (Perkins, 2008) argued that intercultural communication is the ―highest art and science of human
communication,‖ your technical writing acts must always be ―sensitive to pitfalls‖ or hidden dangers arising
from diversities in a multi-cultural environment. (Canavor, 2010)

STRAIGHTFORWARD

A straightforward manner of writing means presenting knowledge or ideas honestly and directly.
Unlike these other ways of writing – literary and expository writing that permit the writer to hide some
meanings through figurative language – technical writing brings out things in frank, unequivocal, or clear-
cut way. Metaphorical, idiomatic, or circuitous expression of ideas has no place in technical writing because
your immediate purpose as a technical writer is to persuade your readers to say ―yes‖ instantly to what you
have written.

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 Hence, to realize this objective, the language of your written work has to be direct, specific, and
simple enough to make you and your readers come to terms with you immediately. The use of complex,
highfalutin or pretentious words demands longer time for the reader to think or decide about the effectiveness
of your offer. This consequently hampers or delays the decision-making power of any personyou want to
agree with what you have written.

AUTHORITATIVE

To describe technical writing as authoritative is to think of it as one clothed with full rights, powers,
and influence to do a thing, to command or be obeyed, or to enforce something on any one. The authority
or power that you technical writing may wield over your reader springs form the fact that the contents of your
output does not mainly come from your our intelligence but also from other people‘s expertise, knowledge,
and experience that could command respect or belief.

Proofs of the authoritativeness of your technical paper are the properly cited and documented ideas
of knowledgeable writers of technical writing books in your work, specifically, the in-text citations, footnotes,
and bibliographical entries in your paper. Another proof is the reality that you are the creator of the paper,
and, such as, you have an idea of the extent of its excellence, and have the full control over the quality, kind,
or extent of ideas to go into your paper, including the way you react to inquiries about your output.

PRESENTABLE

The physical appearance of a technical writing output somehow mirrors the person who produced
such kind of paper. A dirty-looking technical written work diminishes its power, influence orauthoritativeness.
So, if you want your technical paper to have a strong impact on the reader or to elicit an immediate and
positive response from him, see to it that your written work is free from any grammatical and typographical
errors. Present it nearly whether it is handwritten, typewritten, or computerized.

The layout, order, or placement of the various parts of your work likewise makes your work
presentable. In addition, focusing your attention on these basic elements of a written prosaic work; margin,
spacing, punctuation marks, size/style of the letter, and quality/size of the stationery or bond paper
contributes a lot to making your entire composition presentable or capable of getting serious and favourable
attention from your readers.
 QUALITIES OF A TECHNICAL WRITER

In view of these properties and principles of technical writing, the technical writer should
possess the following basic qualification:

1. Adequate knowledge of the subject matter.

2. Ability to compile information.
3. Ability to organize facts or ideas.
4. Ability to analyze and synthesize.
5. Ability to learn and use specialized vocabularies.
6. Ability to write at the reader‘s comprehensive level.
7. Ability to use the inductive and deductive methods of reasoning.
8. Accuracy of language.
9. Objectivity in presenting facts and issues.
10. Ability to write concise prose.
11. Ability to determine the effectiveness of words, sentences, and paragraphs.
12. Ability to conform to the code of ethics in the technical writing professions.

*** END of LESSON 1***

REFERENCES

Baracero, E. (2011). Technical Writing in this Era of Globalization and Modern Technology.. Manila: Rex Book
Store

Abulencia, E. (2001). Integrated Business and Technical Communication. Manila: Rex Book Store

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Online Reference

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Learning Materials

1. Worksheets (textbook)

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