TECHNICAL

COMMUNICATIO
N
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1.
What is Technical
Communication?
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“Writing that aims to get

work done, to change
people by changing the
way they do things”

Authors use this kind of

writing “to empower
readers by preparing them
for and moving them
toward effective action”
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2.
Major Traits of
Technical
Communication
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Technical communication is:

» Audience-centered
» Designed
» Responsible
» Global
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Technical
Communication is
Audience-centered
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» Technical communicators create documents that aim to

help readers act effectively in the situations in which
they find themselves.

» “a document . . . works for its users” in order to help

them
⋄ Find what they need
⋄ Understand what they find
⋄ Use what they understand appropriately
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“Audience centered” means that technical

communication:
⋄ Has definite purposes
⋄ Enables readers to act
⋄ Occurs within a community
⋄ Is appropriate
⋄ Is interactive
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1. Has Definite Purposes

» Technical writers enable their readers to act in three
ways:

⋄ by informing

⋄ by instructing

⋄ by persuading
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2. Enables Readers to
Act

» Readers act in a way that

satisfies their needs.

» Their needs include

anything that they must
know or do to carry out a
practical activity.
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3. Occurs within a Community

» Action occurs within a

community, a loosely or closely
connected group of people with
a common interest

» Belonging to a community
affects the way a person acts
and expects other members to
act
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» It means understanding how to present your

material so that readers get the information that
they need in the form that they expect it.

» This concept means that readers expect writing—

all communication, actually—to flow in a certain
way, taking into account various factors that
range from how a document should look to what
tone it projects..
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4. Is Appropriate
» Because communication takes place within a
community, it must be appropriate, which can have
two meanings in communication:
⋄ the material needed in the situation is present
⋄ or the material is socially acceptable (social
appropriateness, or accurately representing the
relationships in the situation)
Word choice is often very important
 “I felt that there was needless repetition in what you
wrote.”
 “I felt that the text would be easier to read if the
sections were combined.”
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5. Is Interactive
» The key to all community exchanges
is that they are interactive.
» Readers read the words in the
document, but they also apply what
they know or believe from past
experiences.
» As the words and the experiences
interact, the reader in effect recreates
the report so that it means something
special to him or her, and that
something may not be exactly what
the writer intended.
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Technical
Communication is
Designed
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» Technical writers use design to help their

readers both find information and understand
it

» Design has two ingredients—

⋄ the appearance on the page
⋄ the structure of the content
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1. Design the Appearance

» Helps readers locate information
and see the relationship among
various pieces of information.
» The basic design items that
writers use are
⋄ Headings
⋄ Chunks
⋄ Visual aids
⋄ Hyperlinks
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i. Headings
» Words or phrases that name the contents of the
section that follows

» Also indicate where the units begin and end

» Readers can navigate easily to the information

they need
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ii. Chunks
» Any block of text

» The basic idea is to use a series of short blocks

rather than one long block

» Readers find shorter chunks easier to grasp

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iii. Visual Aids

» Graphs, tables, and other media
» Writers commonly use visual aids to present:
⋄ collections of numerical data (tables)
⋄ patterns or trends in data (graphs)
⋄ examples of action (a short video clip showing how
to connect to internet)
» Documents that explain experiments or projects almost
always include tables or graphs.
» Manuals and sets of instructions rely heavily on
drawings and photographs, and those delivered in digital
format may include audio or video clips.
» Feasibility reports often include maps of sites.
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iv. Hyperlinks

» Specific to Web documents, hyperlinks are words

embedded in the document that help the reader
navigate to more information about a particular
subject.
» Hyperlinks are denoted by a different-colored
text, and are typically underlined.
» Clicking on a hyperlink within a document will
take you to a different page—or a different
location on the same page—that contains more
information about the highlighted word or phrase.
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2. Design the Content

» It means selecting the sequence of the material and
presenting it in ways that help the reader grasp it.

» Two common methods to use are :

⋄ Arrange the material top-down
⋄ Establish a consistent visual logic
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i. Arrange the Material Top-

down
» Top-down means putting the main
idea first.

» Putting the main idea first

establishes the context and the
outline of the discussion.
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ii. Establish a Consistent

Visual Logic
» It means that each element of format
is presented the same as other
similar elements

» The key to this strategy is

consistency
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Technical
Communication is
Responsible
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» Technical writing is an ethical endeavor. The key

principle here is to take responsibility for your
writing.

» You take responsibility because your readers, your

employer, and society— also called “stakeholders”—
rightfully expect to find in your document all the
information necessary to achieve their goals, from
assembling a tricycle to opening a factory.

» In the text of your documents, then, you must tell the

truth and you must do all you can to ensure that your
audience understands your message.
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Definition of Ethics
» Ethics deals with the question, What is the right
thing to do?

» Communicator must act not for self-gain but for

the good of the community, or for the
stakeholders in the situation.
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Ethical Situations
» Situations in which a person would have to make
ethical decisions, and face consequences from
those decisions
» the employee becomes aware that the company is
doing something illegal or that could cause great
harm
» E.g. Space shuttle Challenger disaster
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» This kind of decision—and action—is incredibly

intense, requiring more than just a sense of what
is the right thing to do. It requires courage to
accept the negative consequences on self, and
family, that losing employment entails.

» Each person must ask himself or herself how to

respond in a situation like this, but the ethical
advice is clear—you should blow the whistle.
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» What is ethical behavior in technical

communication situations?

» Experienced technical communicators suggest

three actions:
⋄ Talk to your colleagues
⋄ Trust your intuition
⋄ Talk to your boss
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Technical
Communication is
Global
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» Business is international, and so too are writing and

communication
» As a result, people must now deal with the many languages
and cultures throughout the world on a regular basis
» In intercultural communication you need to give special
consideration to cultural factors and to strategies for
adapting communication for a variety of audiences
» The basic strategy for adapting writing and communication
to other cultures is localization.
» “The process of creating or adapting an information
product for use in a specific target country or a specific
target market”
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1. Radical Localization
» Radical localization deals with those areas that affect
the way users think, feel, and act.
» These areas include rules of etiquette; attitudes
toward time and distance; the rate and intensity of
speech; and local systems of economics, religion, and
society—even the way people go about solving
problems
» In order to perform radical localization you must be
able to look at social behavior from another culture’s
point of view, so that you can understand the thinking
patterns of the other person’s culture
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i. Another Point of View

» For example, in China the color red is associated
with joy and festivity; in the West red can mean
stop, financial loss, or revolution
» In the United States, janitor usually means a
person who maintains a building, and is often
associated with sweeping floors. But in Australia
that same job is called a caretaker—a word that
in the United States usually means someone who
maintains the health of another person
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» Levels of personal acquaintance differ in business

relationships in other cultures. In the United States,
people often conduct business, including very large
sales, with people whom they hardly know, but in
many countries people prefer to achieve some kind of
personal relationship before entering into any
significant business arrangement with them.

» The best method for gaining familiarity with another

culture is to interact with members of that culture,
whether those interactions occur in person or online
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ii. Role of Direct and Indirect Messages

» In the United States we teach that the direct
method is best: State the main point right away
and then support it with facts.
» In some other cultures, that approach is unusual,
even shocking.
» Although in the United States a writer would
simply state in an e-mail that he or she needs a
meeting, in a web culture, like China’s, that
request would come near the end of the message,
only after a context for the meeting had been
established
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2. General Localization
» General localization deals with items, usually
details of daily life, that change from country to
country, for instance, date format, currency, and
units of measurement.
» These concerns fall into two broad areas:
⋄ culture-specific references
⋄ style.
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i. Culture-specific References
» These items are often so ingrained that they are
“invisible” to people in the culture—they are just
the way things are done.
» Time formats. Countries configure the calendar
date differently; some use month/day/year, others
use day/month/year.
» Weights and measurements
» Currency
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» Telephone numbers and addresses. In the

United States, telephone numbers are grouped in
threes and fours—715-444-9906, but in other
countries they are often grouped by twos—33
(0)1 23 34 76 99
In the United States, it is common practice
to address an envelope with the name at the top and
list in descending order the street address and city. In
some countries, Russia, for instance, the address list
is reversed; the country is placed on the first line and
the name of the person on the bottom line
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ii. Style
» Avoid using slang and idioms
» Avoid using humor
» Use glossaries. If you must use jargon or other
specialized language, be sure to include a glossary of
definitions.
» Don’t use long noun phrases. Often English speakers
string together a series of nouns. “Damage recovery
results,” for instance, could be the results of damage
recovery or the act of damaging those results. To avoid
misinterpretation, rewrite the phrase for the non-native
speaker: “results of the damage inspection.”
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» Use clear modifier strings. Consider the phrase

“black effective keyboards and mouse pads.”
Does this mean that both the keyboards and
mouse pads are black and effective? Or just the
keyboards? To help non-native speakers, you
need to express the material in a more precise,
though longer, form: “mouse pads and black
effective keyboards” or “keyboards and mouse
pads that are black and effective.”