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Planning

ANALYZING YOUR AUDIENCE

ANALYZING YOUR PURPOSE

CHOOSING YOUR WRITING TOOLS

TUTORIAL: Cross-Platform Word Processing with CloudOn, Quip, and More

GENERATING IDEAS ABOUT YOUR SUBJECT

RESEARCHING ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

ORGANIZING AND OUTLINING YOUR DOCUMENT

• TECH TIP: How To Use The Outline View

SELECTING AN APPLICATION, A DESIGN, AND A DELIVERY METHOD

TUTORIAL: Creating Outlines

DEVISING A SCHEDULE AND A BUDGET

Drafting

USING TEMPLATES

• GUIDELINES: Drafting Effectively

• TECH TIP: How To Modify Templates

• DOCUMENT ANALYSIS ACTIVITY: Identifying the Strengths and Weaknesses of a Commercial Template

USING STYLES

• TECH TIP: How To Use the Styles Group

TUTORIAL: Creating Styles and Templates

Revising

STUDYING THE DRAFT BY YOURSELF

SEEKING HELP FROM OTHERS

• ETHICS NOTE: Acknowledging Reviewers Responsibly

Editing

Proofreading

WRITER’S CHECKLIST

EXERCISES

LEARNINGCURVE: Understanding the Technical Communication Environment and

CASE 3: Understanding Why Revision Software Cannot Revise and Edit Your Document and

This chapter presents a writing process that focuses on the techniques and tools most useful for technical writers. Should you use the process described here? If you don’t already have a process that works for you, yes. But your goal should be to devise a process that enables you to write effective documents (that is, documents that accomplish your purpose) efficiently (without taking more time than necessary). At the end of this chapter, you will find a Writer’s Checklist. After you try implementing some of the techniques described in this chapter, you can start to revise the Writer’s Checklist to reflect the techniques that you find most effective.

The writing process consists of five steps: planning, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading. The frustrating part of writing, however, is that these five steps are not linear. That is, you don’t plan the document, then check off a box and go on to drafting. At any step, you might double back to do more planning, drafting, or revising. Even when you think you’re almost done—when you’re proofreading—you still might think of something that would improve the document. That means you’ll need to go back and rethink all five steps.

As you backtrack, you will have one eye on the clock, because the deadline is sneaking up on you. That’s the way it is for all writers. A technical writer stops working on a user manual because she has to get it off to the print shop. An engineer stops working on a set of slides for a conference presentation because it’s time to head for the airport. So, when you read about how to write, remember that you are reading about a messy process that goes backward as often as it goes forward and that, most likely, ends only when you run out of time.

Remember, too, that many of the documents you produce will never truly be “finished.” Many types of documents that live online are called living documents because they are meant to be revised as new information becomes available or policies change. Benefits manuals, for example, keep changing.