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Introduction

There are newspaper, legal, scientific and scholastic writing stylebooks; this is a technical writing stylebook for writing procedures to accomplish specific goals.

Procedures can be as simple, as instructions for removing the child-proof cap from an aspirin bottle; as personal, as assessing the worthiness of credit applicants; as timely, as tuning a car engine; as complex, as troubleshooting a computer network. To avoid problems, procedures must be both accurate and easy to follow

Technical writing has its requirements. Words are selected to be easily understood by people who don't speak English well. Sentences are short and very descriptive with few assumptions of knowledge and experience. Punctuation supports the possibility that each procedure can be read to someone by telephone. Composition assumes that the reader will be performing the procedure, step-by-step, with someone like a supervisor or customer watching!

When a reader is pressured to perform in a timely manner, he or she is more interested in how than why. And when options must be assessed, hunting for critical decision-support information affects the outcome; more time is required and errors are more likely to result. How your writing helps a reader to deal with these problems is a question of style.

A professional writer develops his or her own style and adapts it to each project. This publication presents my ideas for writing step-by-step procedure and troubleshooting support documentation of all kinds. After thirty years of technical writing, I am still experimenting and learning, so expect revisions and new topics to be added in future editions.

Writing for highly structured electronic and print publication requires some new and revised compositional styles--which are presented here. If you find that some of the ideas are controversial, we can discuss them by email. Alternative ideas and techniques of merit will be presented and credited if requested.

My goals here are to provide a framework for writing complex technical documents that are interesting, sufficiently detailed and in the least amount of space.

This website contains samples from the first section of the book:Getting the Words Right. The contents of other sections in Technical Writing with Style are listed in the overview.

Ken Lachnicht

• Do the words make sense?
• The words don't make sense; but its too late to change common usage
• Analogies, euphemisms and idioms of languages, professions and industries
• Abusing commonly used phrases
• Using foreign language words
• Using jargon
  
• Words that are spelled alike or sound alike, but have different meanings
• Words that are not interchangeable
• Words inappropriately used as both noun and verb
  
• Creating new words
• New "combined" words
• Questionable word combinations
  
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Abbreviations and Acronyms with numbers
• Using an Acronym without definition
• Evolving Acronyms
• Internet abbreviations
• Compound Abbreviations in tables and lists
• Pronouncing Abbreviations and Acronyms

Because the samples are presented in HTML, they do not include samples of graphic elements, examples of nested relationships and representations of complex layouts. These pages are formatted for viewing with a browser with at least Netscape 3.0 capabilities.

PUNCTUATION

• Period ( . )
• Question Mark ( ? )
• Exclamation Point ( ! )
• Comma ( , )
• Semicolon ( ; )
• Colon ( : )
• Apostrophe ( ' )
• Quotation Marks ( " " )
• Parentheses ( ( ) )
• Brackets ( [ ] )
• Dash ( - -- )
• Hyphen ( - )
• Ellipses ( . . . )
• Slash ( / )

TEXT CONCEPTS

• Uppercase and Lowercase characters
• Contrasting type
• Computer keys
• Internet and Email addresses
• Numbers within the body text
• Mathematical Fractions
• Mathematical Tables
  
• Margins and Alignment of text
• Natural reading habits
• Tabs
• Line-lengths for text
• Line-spacing of text
  
• Titles, Headlines and subheads
• Text Call-outs
• Graphs
  
• Bold typestyle
• Reference Notes in text
• Italic typestyle
• Underline typestyle

GLOSSARY OF TYPOGRAPHICAL CONCEPTS

• Ampersand
• Art
• Ascender
• Bar
• Baseline
• Box character
• Bullet character
• Camera-ready
• Color
• Descender
• Dingbats
• Drawing
• Drop Caps
• Envelopes
• En-space
• Em-space
• Expanded typestyle
• Font
• Footnotes
• Graphics and Lines
• Grouping page elements
• Icon characters
• Justified-text
• Kerning character spaces
• Leading
• Letters as art
• Letter spacing
• Linespace
• Ligatures
• Manual feed
• Master
• Modern typefaces
• Moving elements
• Oldstyle typefaces
• Orphans
• Paint graphic
• Phone numbers
• Pica measurement
• Point measurement
• Postscript
• Punctuation
• Ragged text
• Raised Caps
• Rule line
• Sanserif typefaces
• Scanner
• Serif typefaces
• Sidebar text
• Small Caps
• Subscript
• Superscript
• Tabs and Indents
• Thin-space
• Tracking
• Typeface
• Typeface selection
• Typeset
• Uppercase
• Vertical alignment
• White space
• Widows
• WYSIWYG
• X-height

COMPOSITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Stylesheets
• Defining Stylesheets
  
• Typeface and Font selection
  
• Tables
• Contents of tables
• Table organization
• Table group and subgroup titles
• Table text alignment
• Table text composition
• Table Footnotes
• Table construction
• Table page location
• Table Color
  
• Lists
• List: sequential items
• List: procedural
• List: progressive and regressive
• List: associative groups
• Reference indicators in lists
  
• Index
• Index considerations
• Tables of Content
• Glossaries and Dictionaries
  
• Page Numbering
• Page Numbering: Military-style
• Page Numbering: Enhanced Military
• Page Numbering: Sequentially
  
• Headers and Footers
  
• Page size, color, binding, etc.
• Book and Booklet publishing
• Page layout grid
• Print Specifications sheet

WRITING PACKAGE AND DEVICE LABELS

• Product Package Labels
• What do consumers want to know about the product before making a purchase decision?
• What do consumers need to know about the product?
• Is there room for graphics depicting proper use and/or misuse?
• How easy is it to follow the instructions for use on the label?
• Foreign language translations
• Examples of procedure testing
• Are there legally mandated label statements for the product?
• Is there a risk related to failing to read or misreading the label?
• Are there are specific storage and disposal requirements?
• For the space available, what is an adequate type size for the label's text?
• What contrasting colors will be used for text and the its background?
• Where should the label be located?
• Labeling Equipment, its controls and interfaces
• Identifying Equipment Controls
• Identifying Activity lights and LEDs
• Cable Interface identification
• Manufacturer Equipment identifications
• Text and Icon considerations for labels
• Names and abbreviations for labels
• Type Size for labels
• Printed, raised or recessed letters and icons
• Labeling Computer-related Controls and Interfaces
• Examples of control and interface icons

WRITING USER MANUAL PROCEDURES

• Document Structure
• Organizing documents with many step-by-step procedures
• Structuring step-by-step procedures
• Conditional statements and compound decisions
• Reference Notes in text
• Activity and cautionary phrases
• If you expect people to read a document of procedures once, from start to finish, and they are not likely to read it again
• Procedures with many similar activities and a single goal
• Procedures with few if any similar activities, but a single goal
• If steps are repeated in the same procedure, on the same or opposite page
• If step are repeated in the same procedure, but not on the same or opposite page
• If you expect people to read a document of procedures once, from start to finish, and they are likely to read only selected portions at other times
• If step are repeated in the same procedure, but not on the same or opposite page
• If they are likely to read only selected portions of the document
• Procedures with multiple goals and few if any similar activities
• For critical information that needs to be frequently referenced
• Decision-support information
• Reference box
• Illustrational considerations

LINKS

		Introduction for Site and Samples
		Table of Contents Technical Writing with Style ( First Edition )
		Samples from the Getting the Words Right section in the book
		Samples from the Punctuation section in the book
		Samples of Software File Formats and process descriptions from the Technical Research Assistant 2000
		Samples of Compendium of Hardware and Communications Concepts from the Technical Research Assistant 2000
		Your EMAIL comments and purchase requests are invited

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