English 2053 Report Writing: Technical Writing

Technical Writing: The practical writing that people do as a part of their jobs.

Purposes of Technical Writing:

1. To Inform
2. To Instruct
3. To Persuade

Characteristics of Technical Writing:

1. It is aimed at a Specific Audience
2. It utilizes objective (as plain as possible) language
3. Utilizes Presentational Organization (which means that it is organized in a manner to allow readers to assimilate all the key information at a glance).
4. Integrates the verbal with the visual through visual aids.

Key aspects of Presentational Organization:

• the use of obvious repetition..
• the use of transitions
• divide the information into useable chunks
• use headers

The easy way to think of this is to use this formula: "Tell them what you're going to say; tell them how you're going to say it; say it; tell them what you just told them."

The Writing Process:

Constraints: are the social and physical factors of writer and reader. These include:

• Social Constraints
• Company policy for formatting reports and memos
• Reader's/Writer's history with topic or project
• The line of authority
• Physical Constraints (Time, Length, Budget)

Return to Eng 2053 Topics Page.

Back to Lecture Notes: Overview.

Forward to Writing the Document