Organizational Considerations - Where Organizations

¶ … Organizational Considerations - Where organizations are concerned, care must be taken to report only things that are legitimately true about the organizations, such as information that is found on their corporate web site or in corporate brochures and other documentation. By using only this information, which is objective, there is no chance of libel on an organization by writing something about them that is untrue and potentially derogatory.

Sequencing - This is significant because a lack of sequencing can become very confusing for those that read the information. Events and information should flow clearly and follow one another in a way that makes sense. Skipping around confuses the issue, and important and valid points can often be overlooked because of this.

Ambiguity - Ambiguity is a major problem in technical writing. It is easy for an individual to talk for pages about findings and other important information without actually saying anything that is significant or important. Ambiguity is also sometimes used in reporting findings that are not that clear. If the findings are not clear, this should simply be stated, with an explanation of why this is believed to be so. Talking all around the issue in an effort to make a piece of writing seem more important will fool only the casual reader, and will not fool someone that actually understands the technical information in the writing.

Redundancies - Many people have problems with 'repetitious redundancies that repeat themselves.' It is important, in good technical writing, to be clear and precise, and not to say the same thing over again in different ways. Also important, however, is that enough detail is provided so that understanding is available to any that read the document. It does not matter how many times something is said in different ways if it is still too unclear to be easily understood by the intended audience.

Gender Issues - In a society that is becoming increasingly particular as to what it takes offense to, gender issues are a large problem. If talking about someone that is specifically male or female, a gender designation is acceptable. When discussing issues in general however, it is better to use 'one' or an equivalent term instead of he or she. Worse yet is the 's/he' that seemed to gain popularity some years ago. It makes many people uncomfortable.

Parallel Considerations - Making sure that writing is parallel is another area that many people have problems with. The amount of something in a sentence should always agree. Using 'they' should only occur when more than one person is discussed, and numbers and amounts should be dealt with carefully to avoid mixing them up or using them in a way which does not agree with the subject of the sentence.

Diction Considerations - Proper diction is a significant issue, and many people are unaware that the diction they use is incorrect. This refers to the word choices that many writers make, and care must be taken to use terms that are widely accepted and politically correct, since there are many groups of individuals that could be offended by a wrongly-placed comment, or that could take a poorly-phrased bit of information as a personal attack on their race, gender, nationality, or other characteristics.

Miscellaneous - Miscellaneous issues that must be dealt with include proper formatting, care with spelling and grammar, a comfortable and easy-to-read font style and size, and paper that is of decent quality. This may seem like small issues, but even small issues can appear as glaring errors to some individuals, and this will seriously detract from what could otherwise be a very high-quality piece of writing.

Audience Analysis - Knowing who the audience is should be considered vital for any type of technical writing. It is important to ensure that one is not 'talking down' to one's audience, but it is equally important not to talk so far above the heads of the audience that the audience members have no clear idea what is being said. This lack of understanding of the audience is something that should be addressed before anything is ever written for that audience.

Report Writing - Report writing is not really that difficult, but there are some things that should be avoided. Most of the issues that need to be avoided have been mentioned above, but there are other important ones, such as ensuring that a report is technical and therefore does not include personal opinion, contractions, and other writing issues that might be included in a more relaxed piece of work, such as a narrative or personal essay.

Instructions, Narration, Process - This type of writing must be very technical - and very precise. Any time there are instructions or processes that are being addressed, not being clear can be potentially damaging to anyone that would read the document. This is especially true with instruction manuals for items that can cause harm if they are misused or not installed correctly.

Description - Description is often difficult. Too much detail can become boring and quickly bog the reader down. It can also make a report unclear or confusing. Not enough detail, however, can produce the same unclear and confusing result. It is difficult to balance this, but generally, if the information is not going to actively enhance the reader's understanding of the specific subject at hand, it should not be included.

Definition - Definitions definitely have their place in technical writing. Although the audience usually has a good idea of what is being discussed there will undoubtedly be terms and phrases that are not familiar to everyone. Defining only those terms that would be confusing to the majority is important, so as not to overburden a piece of technical writing with too many definitions for ideas and words that the audience already understands.

Summaries/Abstracts - To avoid problems with summaries and abstracts, they should be only 1-2 pages long and should contain only basic surface information or exceedingly important findings. There is no need to go into explicit detail in a summary or abstract, as this is what the main body of the paper is for. Trying to put too much information into a summary or abstract is a common mistake. Not providing enough information to make the abstract or summary clear, however, is another common mistake that is made by many individuals that are just starting out in technical writing.