Bringing Sense and Sensibility to Technical Writing

 

Communication is pretty much ingrained in our lives. We communicate with each other to exchange or impart ideas, thoughts, opinions, and instructions in the form of speech, writing, and images. Today, information can be within our grasp in a matter of seconds, thanks to the Internet. This “instant gratification” consumption of information poses a challenge for effective communication.

 

Take Ikea as an example: instruction manuals from Ikea contain hardly any written instructions; instead, images are used to communicate. Technical writing, on the other hand, is about producing correct, clear, and concise documentation so that readers are able to understand the material and put the information into action. Confused if you should use principle or principal? Which or that? Who or whom? Or even, differentiating stalactites from stalagmites?

 

Read the rest of the article in the Useful Downloads section of our website.

 

 

Louis Yong

DreamCatcher Technical Writing

Nov 2009