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. If done well, technical writing is an exciting, fulfilling experience but if done poorly, it is frustrating, even harmful to career development. Technicality in writing is based upon the following points

There are six basic properties of Technical writing

1. Clarity
2. Accuracy
3. Comprehensiveness
4. Accessibility
5. Conciseness
6. Correctness

1. Clarity

Technical document must convey a single meaning that the reader can understand. Unclear Technical writing is expensive. 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. If you mean to write 40,000 don’t write 400,000. If you mean to refer to fig 3.1 don’t refer to fig 3.2. Slightest error can confuse or even annoy the reader of the report. If the reader suspects that you are slanting information they have the right to doubt the entire document.

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. In short, in T.W every aspect of the subject is discussed in optimized detail. Document must be long enough to be clear. It must give the audience purpose and object but no extra details. Technical writing can be shortened 10-20% by eliminating unnecessary phrases and choosing short words and sentences.

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.