Here’s a simple rule that I bet you heard in first grade: neatness counts. It’s still true. Also, not running with scissors is still solid advice, too.
Those of you who are engineers, and perhaps the scientists among you, will likely chafe at the notion that an important part of your document isn’t the content. […]

Short post, important message: be clear.
We’ve talked about this idea already, but it needs stressed because it is so often completely ignored. People will say “oh, of course I should write clearly,” but then when it gets down to a choice between “transmit” and “send”, they’ll pick “transmit” because it makes them sound smarter.
You probably […]

So much of your success as a technical writer hinges on understanding your audience. If you understand their needs and goals you can make sure that your document provides them the information they need, in a form that they can absorb.
A big part of understanding your audience is knowing what they expect from your document, […]

Knowing what your audience already knows is the first step to creating a message that will communicate information to them (rather than, say, at them or just near them). The next step is knowing what you expect the audience to do after you communicate with them.
So, ask yourself a couple questions:

What is the audience […]

At the core of your ability to communicate effectively in writing is understanding your audience, and the first thing you need to understand about your audience is what they already know about your topic.
Cooking popcorn across the room
Consider that you work for an appliance company in their engineering department, and your team has just […]

You know what you’re going to write about and you know what you’d like to accomplish. You are all set to disseminate, persuade, or inform with your writing.
Before you start, remember that you are writing to communicate with your readers.
First things first
In order to communicate effectively, you need to understand to whom you are talking, […]

We’re talking right now about the number one most critical skill that can drive your career success and impact: writing. If you are going to write effectively you’ve got to know why you are writing, and we identified 3 modes of written technical communication. We’ve covered the first, and second, so let’s look at the […]