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100% agree with knowing your audience and purpose. But you are a technical writer, so these tips might be obvious. Audience and Purpose could be Part 3? But fo

100% agree with knowing your audience and purpose. But you are a technical writer, so these tips might be obvious. Audience and Purpose could be Part 3? But for people that don't do technical writing day to day, it can be a little daunting when you are initially tasked with writing some docs. This is usually the case at smaller companies where people have to wear multiple hats.

kaycebasques 8y ago
> But for people that don't do technical writing day to day, it can be a little daunting when you are initially tasked with writing some docs. This is what I'm trying to help with. If you keep the framework of "know your audience" and "know their purpose" in mind, docs will be much less daunting. Who am I writing this for? What do they know beforehand? What is their purpose of reading this doc? Answer those questions, and you won't need to memorize long lists of specific tips. Trying to memorize tips and grammar rules without having an overarching framework of why they improve your communication is what makes writing daunting, IMO.
pfranz 8y ago
I always start with the audience in any writing. I'm often asked, "write documentation for your tool" by technical peers and managers and I always have to push back trying to get more specifics. Am I writing for a non-technical end-user? Am I writing for a technical person troubleshooting the tool (can I assume they know yaml or how to use a Terminal)? Am I writing for someone who may reimplement or heavily modify this tool. Is this intended for reference or to walk someone through the process for the first time? All of those are documentation and technical writing, but vary greatly in what details you include and how you approach it. In my experience, as a tool writer/maintainer I tend to want to document the implementation, but nobody cares about that until you leave your job (by then the documentation may be out of date if you don't maintain it). Most people's highest priority is a troubleshooting guide (which is difficult with a new tool) and a very explicit walkthrough for non-technical people (which is difficult to maintain because dialogs get tweaked and supporting tools can change).

kaycebasques 8y ago

> But for people that don't do technical writing day to day, it can be a little daunting when you are initially tasked with writing some docs. This is what I'm trying to help with. If you keep the framework of "know your audience" and "know their purpose" in mind, docs will be much less daunting. Who am I writing this for? What do they know beforehand? What is their purpose of reading this doc? Answer those questions, and you won't need to memorize long lists of specific tips. Trying to memorize tips and grammar rules without having an overarching framework of why they improve your communication is what makes writing daunting, IMO.

pfranz 8y ago

I always start with the audience in any writing. I'm often asked, "write documentation for your tool" by technical peers and managers and I always have to push back trying to get more specifics. Am I writing for a non-technical end-user? Am I writing for a technical person troubleshooting the tool (can I assume they know yaml or how to use a Terminal)? Am I writing for someone who may reimplement or heavily modify this tool. Is this intended for reference or to walk someone through the process for the first time? All of those are documentation and technical writing, but vary greatly in what details you include and how you approach it. In my experience, as a tool writer/maintainer I tend to want to document the implementation, but nobody cares about that until you leave your job (by then the documentation may be out of date if you don't maintain it). Most people's highest priority is a troubleshooting guide (which is difficult with a new tool) and a very explicit walkthrough for non-technical people (which is difficult to maintain because dialogs get tweaked and supporting tools can change).