PROCESS OF WRITING

 What is important to think about when writing?

 ASSESS THE WRITING SITUATION

 You have to think about your main point, what you’re trying to say, and what details
will help you say that.”

 You need to ask yourself, ‘Why am I writing this? What do I want to achieve?

 Audience. What do readers need to know, and what will make them happy?

 Well, what exactly do you have to write? A memo, an informative paper, a report, a
review, an email, a persuasive paper? What kind of writing will best get the job done?
• What are you writing • What do you
about? want your
writing to
achieve?

SUBJECT PURPOSE

AUDIENC
GENRE
E

• To whom are you • What form

writing should your
writing take?
 KEY WRITING CONCEPTS

1. SUBJECT:

 “What should I write about?”

 Sometimes you may have to write about topics you dislike. So instead of “What
should I write about?” the more frequent question is “How can I make this topic
interesting for myself and my readers?”
 Make your topics and assignments personally interesting. Begin by having an
open mind about the subject and believing that you have something worthwhile
to say about it.
2. PURPOSE:
 why you are writing or what you want a piece of writing to accomplish. The very
basic purposes of writing are these: to explain, to convince, and to entertain.
 EXERCISE: Identify the main purpose of each of the following pieces
of writing: to explain, to convince, or to entertain.

 1. A set of instructions for building a backyard swing set……..

 2. An editorial in the college newspaper calling for a reduction in parking fees…...
 3. A poem that makes fun of a computer spell-checker program……
 4. A tabloid article about the best and worst beach bodies……
 5. An advertisement for a cell phone provider……
 6. A short story about a man who wakes up as a giant bug……
 7. A set of directions for hooking up a DVD player…..
 8. A letter of reference given to a prospective employer……
 9. A textbook for an economics course…..
 10. A Composition I essay describing a childhood memory of a fishing trip……
 3. Audience
 Explains the importance of audience awareness in writing situations. Since you
are writing for college courses, you already know that professors do not all have
the same requirements for their assignments. A biology professor may want a
different style of writing than a history professor does.
4. Genre
 What Type of Writing Is It?
 For example, think about the different genres, or types, of TV shows you watch.
There are probably quite a few, such as situational comedies, crime dramas,
reality TV shows, news magazines, nightly news broadcasts, sports events, and
documentaries
Exercise: Write to an Audience.
Given your purpose for writing, explain how you would have to adjust
your message or information according to the needs of the specified
readers.
1. Purpose for writing: Explaining what you liked about the concert you went to
last weekend
 Readers: a. your best friend b. readers of a college newspaper column that
reviews cultural events.

2. Purpose for writing: Persuading someone to oppose your community’s plans to

widen a street in your neighborhood because of safety concerns as the traffic
increases
 Readers: a. your local government representative b. your local newspaper c.
your writing instructor who has just assigned a persuasive essay
 What is technical writing?

 Technical writing is the writing of those involved in the technical fields, i.e., science and
engineering.
 In science and engineering
1. Write technical reports.
2. Write technical proposals.
3. Various forms of technical communication.

 Technical writing is direct, informative, clear, and concise language written specifically for an
identified audience.
 The content must be accurate and complete with no exaggerations.
 To deliver the intended message, the text must be objective and persuasive without being
argumentative.
 Technical writing, includes: ! memos and e-mail ! letters ! reports ! instructions ! brochures and
newsletters ! the job search ! web pages ! fliers ! PowerPoint presentations ! graphics
 Technical versus creative

 Technical writing lacks the emotional impact

 Technical writing avoids use of rich metaphors and
figures of speech.
 Typically sentence structures are simple and direct.
 “Technical writing is precise, objective, direct, and clearly
defined.”
 Traits of technical writing

 The five traits of technical writing are:

 ! clarity
 ! conciseness
 ! accessible document design
 ! audience recognition
 ! accuracy
 The most important criteria for effective technical writing is clarity. If the
audience responds to a memo, letter, report, or manual with, “Huh?” what has the
writer accomplished? If the correspondence is not clearly understood.

 Clarity achieved through specificity

 have a low GPA. ……………………………..
 The b-ball player was really tall………………………..
 I’ll be home as soon as possible…………………………
 The team has a losing record……………………………….
 The computer has lots of memory……………………….
Conciseness
 Read this paragraph:
 “In order to facilitate an efficient meeting and fuel thought
processes prior to June 25, I want to provide you with a brief
overview of discussions recently carried out at the director and
manager level within the process. These discussions involved
personnel from Accounts Payable, Information Services,
Procurement/ Materials Management, Financial Systems, and
Property Accounting, centering on a proposed framework for
managing process improvement moving forward.”
 The above paragraph is not successful writing. It fails to communicate clearly
because it is too long-winded. In this case, conciseness actually would aid clarity.
 Conciseness achieved through short words.
 Long Words… cognizant, endeavor, domicile, morbidity, terminate
 Short Words.. Know, try, home, death, end
 Successful technical writing tries to avoid multisyllabic.
 Conciseness achieved through short sentences.
 “In order to successfully accomplish their job functions, the team has been
needing more work space for some time now.”
 An improved sentence would read,
“The team needs more work space to do its jobs.”
 You can shorten a sentence by avoiding:
 ! redundancy ! prepositional phrases ! passive voice

 This is a brand new innovation

This is an innovation.
 I will see you in the near future.
I will see you soon.
 It is my decision to run for office.
I decided to run for office
EXERCISE

Change the following long words to shorter words

Utilize, anticipate, cooperate, indicate, initially, presently, prohibit,
inconvenience
 Change the following long phrases to one word
 In the event that, At this point in time, With regard to, In the first
place, Is of the opinion that, Due to the fact that, Make revisions,
Take into consideration, With the exception of, Make an adjustment
to
 I will be calling you on May 31 to see if you have any questions at that time.
 If I can be of any assistance to you in the evaluation of this proposal, please feel
free to give me a call.
 The company is in the process of trying to cut the cost of expenditures relating
to the waste of unused office supplies.
 I am of the opinion that Acme employees have too much work to do.
 In the month of July, my family will make a visit to the state of Arkansas.
 It is the company’s plan to take action to avoid problems with hazardous waste.
 On two different occasions, the manager of personnel met with at least several
different employees to ascertain whether or not they were in agreement with the
company’s policies regarding overtime.
 Recognizing your audiences:
Successful technical writers know that they can only achieve clarity by
recognizing their audiences
 Accuracy
Effective technical writing must be correct, whether grammatically,
mathematically, electronically, etc.
 EXERCISE: Use highlighting techniques in the paragraph.
Consider using bullets or numbers, headings, boldface or
underlining, and white space.

 To make a pie chart using your word processing package’s graphic

components, turn on the machine. Once it has booted up, double click on the
word processing icon. After the system is open, click on “graphic,” scroll
down to “chart,” and double click. Next, click on “data chart types” and select
“pie.” Once you have done this, input your new data in the “data sheet.” After
this has been completed, click anywhere on the page to import your new pie
chart. If you want to make changes, just double click again inside the pie
chart; then you can revise according to your desires.