
Unit 11: Technical writing
Audience:
You should tailor your communication
to meet the audience needs. Ask yourself - who are your intended readers? You should use different language
when addressing
a technical expert
as opposed to an audience
that has limited knowledge.
Think about what the audience members will do
with the information. Consider their knowledge level.
Context:
The context determines
how the reader or listener
will receive
and interpret
the message. It helps the writer determine
what format
is appropriate
and how the subject
should be approached.
Some more top tips for writing your paper
Organisation:
Identify the one central and
novel contribution of your paper.
Write this down
in one paragraph.
As with all your writing,
this must be concrete. A contribution includes an
addition to your field’s overall
knowledge
How do you
add value?
Don’t write
“I analyzed data
on executive compensation
and found many
interesting results.”
Explain
the central results.
For example, Fama and French
(1992) start their abstract with:
“Two easily measured variables,
size and book-to-market equity,
combine to capture
the cross-sectional variation
in average stock returns
associated with market B,
size, leverage,
book-to-market equity,
and earnings-price ratios.”
Distilling one central contribution
will take some thought.
Focus on one contribution,
and help readers
to get it quickly.
Your readers
are busy and impatient.
Never assume that they will read the whole paper
from start to finish.
Make it easy
for your readers
to skim.
Readers want to know
your basic result.
Top tips for technical writing by Vince Ricci: CIEE, Joe Schall: Penn State University, Glynis Perkin: Loughborough University, edited by Marion Kelt: GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.slideshare.net/tokyovince/introduction-to-technical-writing-4305074 http://www.slideshare.net/engCETL/technical-report-writing-handout https://www.e-education.psu.edu/styleforstudents/c1_p15.html.