Technical Communication Process
Technical Communication Process
Communication
“ ii.
i. Planning your document
Drafting and revising
iii. Editing or finishing
2
Planning your
document
1
“ ii.
i. Situate Yourself
Create an Audience Profile
iii. Create a Document Plan
iv. Design your Template
v. Create a Production Schedule
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i. Situate yourself
To situate yourself, you need to determine
what you are trying to do
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Are Legal or ethical issues
involved?
⊹ These issues can be very important, such
as whether this project and the report that
supports it actually break the law, or they
can deal with issues
10
“ ii.
i. Situate Yourself
Create an Audience Profile
iii. Create a Document Plan
iv. Design your Template
v. Create a Production Schedule
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ii. Create audience profile
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“ ii.
i. Situate Yourself
Create an Audience Profile
iii. Create a Document Plan
iv. Design your Template
v. Create a Production Schedule
13
III. Create a document plan
⊹ Establish your content needs
⊹ Establish your strategy
⊹ Decide whether to use a genre
⊹ Decide whether to use an established
pattern
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Establish your content needs
⊹ To establish your content needs you must determine:
× what you know about the topic and
× what the audience knows and needs to learn.
⊹ If you know little or nothing about the topic, then you have to
set up a plan to discover all the information before you can
decide what the audience needs.
⊹ Add to what the audience knows and don’t belabor the obvious.
If they know a lot, then you can assume that they know broad
terminology and implications of actions (e.g., if you say, “Open
a Word file,” they will perform all the actions necessary to open
a new file on the screen without further instruction)
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Establish your strategy
⊹ To establish your strategy, you determine how to carry out
your goal.
⊹ Strategy is your “creative concept,” the way you present the
material so that your reader can easily grasp and act upon it
⊹ The idea of strategy is to help readers grasp the big picture
so that they can interrelate all the details that you present to
them.
⊹ The organization of your document helps them find that big
picture.
⊹ Two common ways to organize are to follow a genre, to use
established patterns
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Decide whether to use a genre
⊹ A genre is a standardized way to present
information
⊹ Various genres include documents such as
sets of instructions, proposals, trip reports,
or meeting agendas, documents so
common that just by looking at them the
reader knows what to expect
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Decide whether to use an
established pattern
⊹ If no genre exists, you could try several
other options. You could use a common
rhetorical sequence: for instance,
definition followed by example
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Iv design your template
⊹ A template is a general guide for the look
of your page.
⊹ A consistent way to visually identify parts
of a paper.
⊹ width of margins,
⊹ the treatment of visuals and lists,
⊹ the position of page numbers, and
⊹ the typeface
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“ ii.
i. Situate Yourself
Create an Audience Profile
iii. Create a Document Plan
iv. Design your Template
v. Create a Production Schedule
21
V create a production
schedule
⊹ A production schedule is a chronological list of the activities
required to generate the document and the time they will
consume.
⊹ Your goal is to create a realistic schedule, taking into
consideration the time available and the complexity of the
document.
⊹ You need to answer these questions:
× How much time do I have?
× Who is involved in producing the document?
× What constraints affect production?
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How much time do I have?
⊹ Determine the end point and then work
backward, considering how long it will
take to perform each activity.
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Who is involved in producing
the document?
⊹ The number of people involved in the procedure varies from
one (you) to many especially if there is a review process.
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What Constraints affect
production?
⊹ Constraints are factors that affect production of the document.
⊹ Time
⊹ Budget
⊹ Method of production
⊹ Method of distribution is the manner in which the document
is delivered to the reader. If it is to be mailed, for instance, it
must fit into an envelope of a certain size.
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Drafting &
revising your
2 document
“
Drafting & revising are the actions you take as you create the
document.
⊹ It is not the same as checking closely for spelling and other types
of “surface” consistency. That stage is editing or finishing
⊹ As you draft you implement your plan, choosing words,
paragraphs, examples, explanations that convey your topic to
your reader.
⊹ You often have “discovery” moments in which you realize more
about the topic and how to present it.
⊹ You may suddenly think of new ideas or new ways to present
your examples.
⊹ Or you may discover an entirely new way to organize and
approach the whole topic, and so you discard much of your
tentative plan
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“ i.
ii.
Research to discover information
Design your information to help your
reader
iii. Use context-setting introductions
iv. Place important material at the top
v. Use preview lists
vi. Use repetition and sequencing
vii. Use coordinate structure
viii. Testing
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I. research to discover
information
⊹ If you do not know the topic, obviously you must learn about it.
To do so requires time spent researching.
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“ i.
ii.
Research to discover information
Design your information to help your
reader
iii. Use context-setting introductions
iv. Place important material at the top
v. Use preview lists
vi. Use repetition and sequencing
vii. Use coordinate structure
viii. Testing
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II. Design your information to
help your reader
⊹ To design your information, remember that you
are creating an experience for your readers. You
are helping them build a model.
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“ i.
ii.
Research to discover information
Design your information to help your
reader
iii. Use context-setting introductions
iv. Place important material at the top
v. Use preview lists
vi. Use repetition and sequencing
vii. Use coordinate structure
viii. Testing
36
III. Use context setting
introductions
⊹ Your introduction should supply an overall
framework
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“ i.
ii.
Research to discover information
Design your information to help your
reader
iii. Use context-setting introductions
iv. Place important material at the top
v. Use preview lists
vi. Use repetition and sequencing
vii. Use coordinate structure
viii. Testing
41
Iv. Place important material
at the top
⊹ Placing important material at the top—the beginning of
a section or a paragraph—emphasizes its importance.
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⊹ The following sentences, taken from the beginning of a
paragraph, illustrate how a writer used a statement of
significance followed by a list of key terms.
A bill of materials (BOM) is an essential part of every MRP plan.
For each product, the BOM lists each assembly, subassembly, nut,
and bolt.
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“ i.
ii.
Research to discover information
Design your information to help your
reader
iii. Use context-setting introductions
iv. Place important material at the top
v. Use preview lists
vi. Use repetition and sequencing
vii. Use coordinate structure
viii. Testing
44
V. Use preview lists
⊹ Preview lists contain the keywords to be used in the document.
They also give a sense of the document’s organization
⊹ The basic list has three components:
× an introductory sentence that ends in a “control word,”
× a colon
× a series of items.
The control word names the items in the list and is followed by a
colon.
The series of items is the list itself
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A test package includes three parts: test plans, test specifications,
and tests.
⊹ A more informal variation of the basic list has no colon, and the
control word is the subject of the sentence
The three parts of a test are test plans, test specifications, and tests.
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“ i.
ii.
Research to discover information
Design your information to help your
reader
iii. Use context-setting introductions
iv. Place important material at the top
v. Use preview lists
vi. Use repetition and sequencing
vii. Use coordinate structure
viii. Testing
51
VIII. Testing
⊹ Testing is asking other people to interact with your
document in order to discover where it is effective
and where it needs revision.
⊹ The goal is to turn your alpha version into a
finished, smooth beta version.
⊹ There are two types of testing—
× formal
× informal
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Editing or
finishing
3
“ Editing (or finishing) means developing
a consistent, accurate text.
⊹ In this stage, you refine your
document until everything is correct.
⊹ You check spelling, punctuation,
basic grammar, format of the page,
and accuracy of facts.
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⊹ Style Design
× No spelling or grammar errors.
⊹ Information Design
× Title appears.
× Introduction appears. Introduction tells point
of document and, if it is long, sections of the
document.
× Body sections are structured similarly
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⊹ Page Design
× Fonts are consistent, and large enough to be
easily readable.
× Heads appear and indicate subject of their
section.
⊹ Visual Design
× Visuals appear to support a point in the text or
provide a place for the text to begin.
× Visuals are effectively sized, captioned, and
referenced
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⊹ Navigation Design
× Every link works.
× Links provide helpful paths through
the work.
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⊹ The key is to work on only one type of problem at a
time. For example, first read for apostrophes, then for
spelling errors, then for heading consistency, then for
consistency in format, and so forth.