Technical Writing forIndustrial Wastewater Operators

Steve Frank, APR, WEF Fellow

SDF Communications, Inc.SDFComm@q.com303-957-7459

Wisdom of my 7th grade teacher

If you can’t write it, you don’t understand it

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

– Albert Einstein

Four types of writing

Technical News/Other media Academic Literary

Technical

Correspondence Letters Memos – The “old” writing E-mail – The “new” writing

Reports Technical Narrative

Proposals Job procedures, instructions (SOPs)

News/Other Media

Newspaper Magazine Audio/video scripts Text messages Blogs Web sites

Three purposes

To inform

To entertain

To persuade

Your writing strategy

1. What do you need to say?

2. Who do you need to say it to?

3. What do you need them to do after they read what you wrote?

Simple communication model

Message

Channel

Source(You)

Receiver(Audience)

You Encode They Decode

Your audience

Source: You are the source. You know something that someone else needs to know

Analysis: You assess the audience and select the information to include—and the information to exclude

Audience: Those who will read what you write and make decisions based upon it

Translation decisions: Decisions you make in encoding your information for you audience

Prose literacy levels, U.S., 2013

10

20

30

40

4%

14%

34%36%

12%

Nonlit

era

te Belo

w B

asi

c

Inte

rmedia

te

Basi

c

Pro

fici

ent

Level1

Level2

Level3

Level4

Level5

52%

48%

Other audience factors

Age Race Language (11 million

adults are non-literate in English)

Country of origin Education level Economic status We’re all busy (best

readers read at 200 wpm)

Special audience challenges

Older people Health care consumers Mobile device users Top executives Brain surgeons, rocket scientists

About E-Mail

E-mail is generally: Not as formal as a

letter More immediate tone

than a letter Shorter than letters

Can also be made to sound formal

Subject line

Emails are usually formatted as follows:From:To:Cc:Subject:

From, To, and Cc help get the email where it’s going. Subject is a headline that says what it’s about

Grab attention with Subject

Use the Subject line to grab reader’s attention

Squeeze key information into 8 words Use caps and lower case Don’t use ALL CAPS. IT’S LIKE

SHOUTING Example: Traffic accident report;

nobody hurt

Composing the report

Example: You were in a traffic accident. You need to report it to your boss and the safety office.

On a clean sheet of paper, jot down all the facts about the accident that seem relevant.

Think about how you would say this if you just told it to a friend. What are the most important facts?

Ask yourself: who, what, when, where, how, why.

Content

Begin with the most important information: “I was in a traffic accident this morning. I am OK. The truck is drivable but will need some repairs.”

With the information above, a busy person can decide to read the rest or close it and move on.

The rest of the story…I was in a traffic accident this morning. I am OK. The truck is

drivable but will need some repairs.

On April 11 at about 6 a.m., I was driving truck number 172

toward Golden. The weather was clear. Just past McIntyre, a

deer jumped out onto the road from my right. I jammed on

the brakes. The right front fender and headlight hit the deer.

The headlight broke.

Nobody was hurt. The deer jumped up and ran off. The truck

is drivable to the repair shop. I reported the accident to the

Jefferson County Sheriff’s Dept. A deputy took a report but

did not give me a ticket.

Did you…?

Put all the addressees in the TO or CC line that should be there?

Attach any required attachments? Include pertinent details? Eliminate irrelevant details? Support your conclusion(s) with facts?

Relax, review, revise

Take a breath Check to see all needed information

included Use spell check and pay attention to basic

grammar and punctuation Revise and correct errors before you send

your e-mail Don’t use all caps or all lower case. ALL

CAPS FEELS LIKE YOU’RE SHOUTING and all lower case makes you look illiterate

These tools can help

Use Spellcheck in Outlook

- You can find both spell check and word count in Review- If it’s going up the chain, use spellcheck!- Use www.storytoolz.com to help you revise and rewrite

Texts and Tweets

A text is a message sent directly from one cell phone to another

Maximum text length is 140 characters Grammar and spelling rules are relaxed in

favor of brevity and the 140-character limit Tweets are brief messages of 140

characters or less that are sent via Twitter. Followers can re-Tweet them to others

Remember: Tweets go to everyone who follows you and people they know, too

Value of brevity

Think about who will read your memo. A 600-word memo will take an average person 3 minutes to read

Think about BCC and who else the addressees might forward your e-mail to

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” —Mark Twain