5 Steps to Technical Writing

Document Analysis

• Customer’s current publications are reviewed for style, content, safety and grammar
• Recommendations are presented and can be used as a price estimating basis

Safety Information Analysis

• Safety messages within the publications and product safety labels on the equipment are reviewed against ANSI and ISO standards
• Results and recommendations are presented for consideration

Research

• Product information is analyzed
• Competitor product information is researched
• Relationship is established with customer subject matter expert (SME) for collaboration
• Outline of manual is submitted for review
• Scope of project is determined

Technical Edit

• Customer-written text is edited to comply with technical writing best practices including the use of direct, active voice and removal of wordiness and jargon
• Customer-written text is edited for consistency, especially nomenclature
• Text written in English which was prepared in another country can be edited or rewritten for understandability

Authoring

• New text is written or existing text is rewritten
• Supporting illustrations are identified; photographs are sized and enhanced for quality
• Manuscript is produced, edited and proofread
• Manual is submitted for review (which could include engineering, safety and legal), customer comments are incorporated and final draft is prepared for review prior to publishing