What Is Technical Writing?
Get introduced to the course and an overview of technical writing.
Overview
As developers, your primary goal is to solve problems, and writing helps you to do that. If you write down the details and the context of the problem you want to solve, you will clearly understand the full scope of the challenge you're facing.
Sure, you can create a mind map, but taking your thinking a step further and writing it down helps you clearly see any contradicting arguments present in your solution. In other words, it helps you to make sure your problem solving is correct.
By adhering to the standards of technical writing, your writing will also become clearer and better suited for your intended audience, even if that audience is just yourself.
The skills described in this course will help you better communicate important and complex ideas to your manager, stakeholders, or peers.
Note: Not all the documents mentioned in this course "technically" count as technical writing, but the foundations of technical writing you'll learn in this course will help you to improve your writing in all areas.
In this course, you will learn:
What technical writing is and the characteristics that define it
How to outline a document before you begin writing
How to correctly use punctuation and write clear, effective sentences and well-organized paragraphs
How to review and revise your draft
Where to practice technical writing
This course’s primary audience is developers and their managers who are interested in improving their technical writing abilities.
Note: The information shared in this course is also helpful for content creators or individuals who want to improve their general writing skills.
If you are a developer who doesn't have enough time to take the entire course, we encourage you to prioritize the following chapters and lessons:
Lesson: Characteristics and Types of Technical Writing
Chapter: How to Get Started
Goes over how to structure your outline. Includes example outlines for a few types of writing you might need to be familiar with.
Chapter: How to Write a Good Paragraph
Chapter: How to Review and Revise
For those interested in more detail, check out Appendix A. Many of the lessons in this course use grammatical terms. If a term is unclear to you, you can read more about the term in Appendix A.
So, what is technical writing anyway?
Technical writing conveys complex technical ideas in a clear, concise way so that even a nontechnical audience can understand those ideas.
Why is technical writing important?
Technical writing is a writing discipline that exists to make sure that complex concepts are described in such a way as to make those concepts understandable to a larger group of people. This means that your technical writing increases the knowledge of your intended audience—that's a powerful effect! And a generous one.
In software development, as you likely know, part of the development process is laying out the plans and processes for an upcoming build to catch any holes or inaccuracies beforehand. Good technical writing helps you and your team create clear documentation that enables all stakeholders to be on the same page.
Note: When you write
, you are able to see all your ideas at once and catch contradictions or holes in the logic. documentation The kind of documentation you will be required to write throughout your career will depend on your current company's methodology.
What sets technical writing apart from other writing?
In terms of its purpose and characteristics, technical writing differs from other types of
Let's look at some defining characteristics of technical writing:
It focuses on effective delivery of technical information to a specific audience.
It presents factually correct information.
It's easy to update.
It's impersonal—that is, it usually uses the third-person perspective and it does not include the writer's personal opinions.
It's comprehensive.
It's straightforward and concise—that is, it avoids the stylistic embellishments common in creative and journalistic writing.
What makes a good technical writer?
A good technical writer understands their audience, knows what information their audience is most interested in, and makes even the most difficult concepts accessible through effective explanation.
A good technical writer also has a strong command of writing in general. Once you have a good grasp of the building blocks of writing, technical writing will be much easier to learn, practice, and eventually master.
Let's get started!