The 10 Good Habits of Technical Writers
Good technical writers never release anything until the work’s been thoroughly proofread. The best technical writers eliminate unnecessary words so that the text is as short as possible. The best writers search for “etc.” replacing it with actual content. Technically proficient writers check their detail for accuracy. If a good technical writer isn’t sure about […]
Why Do Technical Writers Write So Passively? How To Communicate Better In Technical Writing: Part I
Passive writing adds words and detaches the action from the recipient. For example, “The cat sat on the mat,” (written in the active voice) can be written in the passive voice: “The mat was seated upon by the cat.” In this passive voice example, we go from six words to eight, a 33% increase, and […]
How To Communicate Better In Technical Writing: Part II
Now that we’ve covered active voice vs passive voice, let’s think about writing more generally. Engineers often view writing as a burden or chore that must be finished on time for an impatient supervisor. Negative attitudes influence a work task in a bad way. If a task is addressed with a positive outlook, the work […]
Why Not Leave The State of Technical Writing Alone?
Because Technical Writing Standards Are In Decline. What evidence is there of poor standards of technical writing? I have my own sources. First, there’s the material I read as a director of a research group, a higher education teacher, and the material I read from my peer researchers. Educationalists continually bemoan the falling standards of […]