CANKAYA UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNIT

CANKAYA UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNIT

CHAPTER IIIFOR RTW-405 COURSE

WEEK 3

CHAPTER IIIPROCESS OF TECHNICAL WRITING

OUTLINE

1. Phase 1. Conducting A Situational Analysis

PROCESS OF TECHNICAL WRITING

Technical writing process has four main phases:

Phase 1. Conducting A Situational AnalysisPhase 2. Gathering InformationPhase 3. Planning & ArrangingPhase 4. Writing & Revising


Phase 1. Conducting A Situational Analysis

Audience: readers of your document you must understand their abilities, needs, characteristics, and expectations.

Role: perspective you take toward the information and the audience.

Are you an instructor informing your readers or a student showing your mastery of a subject to your professor?

Or you may be a design engineer explaining the rationale behind your plans to a budget committee that will fund additional work on the project.



Purpose: this includes both your purpose as a writer and that of your readers. Why are you presenting the information and why are they reading?

Subject matter: is analyzed in terms of scope and complexity. What are the most important parts of the topic both to you and your audience?

Constraints:include many elements, such as budget, schedule, resources, and format.



1.1. Audience: Technical documents address specific audiences.If you think about the qualities of your audience, you will write a more effective report.To understand your audience, you can ask yourself some questions:



1.1. Audience: Who will be reading the document?Will they be business executives, nurses, your boss, co-workers, and a budget committee of laypersons, hobbyists, students, children, homemakers, or maintenance personnel?

What is the audience’s level of expertise?Are your readers as experienced as you, or are they unskilled trainees? Perhaps, they are highly educated theorists or accomplished technicians.



1.1. Audience: Why do they need the information in your document?Is your document simply providing information for their consideration, or will they be acting on the points you arise? They might be allocating funds, building a machine, rejecting a proposal, or implementing a program.

Which points are most important to them?Are your readers most interested in the cost of implementing your recommendations? Are your methods of greatest concern to them? Do they need to learn how to operate the machinery you are describing, or will they be fixing it instead?



1.1. Audience: Other audience characteristics to consider include:Age, hobbies, income, concerns, gender, education, occupation, location, interests, social status, responsibilities, political affiliation, opportunities...

The information you derive from this analysis offers you an insight into choosing such elements as vocabulary, sentence structure, graphic aids, and format.

See page 45 to understand the audience impact.



1.2. Role: Your role as a writer is a subset of your total self. As a writer of technical document, you may play the role of a scientist, analyst, researcher, critic, engineer, or advocate.

To decide the appropriateness of your role, you should rely on the readers’ expectations of you. If it requires an analyst, you should be an analyst; if it requires a consultant, you should be one.

Establishing an appropriate role is crucial because it affects the vocabulary, tone, level of detail, order of information, choice of visuals, and so forth.

See p.46 for a list of the roles.



1.3. Purpose:

The overall purpose of technical writing is to communicate skills, information, and experience.

However, it is accompanied by immediate purposes, such as allocation of budget, implementation of a nutrition program, or installation of a new software program.

You may write about the same topic with different purposes.



1.3. Purpose:For example, in one document you aim at explaining the installation process of a greenhouse.

Whereas you provide the reader with evidence that is the best alternative to grow vegetables in another document.

In the first one, the audience needs to learn about the materials, dimensions, order of steps, etc. On the other hand, in the second one, they need some scientific information and samples.

See p. 48 for a list of purposes.



1.3. Purpose:In order to state your purpose clearly, you should develop a complete statement of purpose that includes both sets of objectives as part of your situational analysis. Look at the following statements of purpose:

• I will compare the price and performance features of the 2012 Volkswagen Polo 1.4 to that of the Opel Corsa Enjoy 1.4 so that my readers can choose the car that best suits their needs.

• I will describe the methods and materials I used in my experiment so that my instructor can evaluate my performance in recent lab sessions.

See p. 49 to develop a statement of purpose.



1.4. Subject Matter Say you have to write a lab report on and the subject matter will be the experiments you have conducted.

Subject matter is delicately balanced on these interrelated factors:• The level of detail• The order of information• The examples provided



1.4. Subject Matter



1.4. Subject Matter Imagine that you must go to your parents to discuss your financial problems and to ask for help (even though you know it would be a burden). In this case your audience is your parents, you role is son or daughter, and your purpose is to gain financial help from them. Consider the differences that would probably exist if you were discussing the same subject with each of the other two combinations of audience, role, and purpose cited below: Audience Role Purpose Bank loan officer applicant borrow money Your best friend friend enlist sympathy



1.4. Subject Matter



1.5. Recognizing Constraints

A constraint is a limitation or prescribed method that affects a writing situation. These elements include:

• Format specifications• Schedule• Budget• Availability of information• Human resources and abilities• Production and distribution capabilities



1.5. Recognizing Constraints 1.5.1. Format Specifications

The writing style of a manual is different from a propasal, report or letter.

Format affects style, tone, level of detail, vocabulary, examples, and graphics.

Not all technical writing is produced in a prescribed format, but many companies, government agencies, and universities establish their own guidelines for preparing documents.



1.5. Recognizing Constraints 1.5.1. Format Specifications

When you need to write in a certain format, consider

• all the headings you must provide, • the order of information within those categories, • the kind of graphics you can incorporate, and• the emphasis given to each section of document.



1.5. Recognizing Constraints 1.5.2. ScheduleSince the technical writing process unfolds in several stages, it is not necessary to do everything in one block of time. This is more important in complex writing situations.As part of your situational analysis, list the many activities that must be planned before you write. These may include:• Situational analysis• Research• Initial writing• Review cycle• Approval process



1.5. Recognizing Constraints 1.5.3. Budget

During the situational analysis you should consider several means of producing the final documents at various prices. For example, • bid proposals are printed professionally and bound in a cover that carries

your firm’s logo• brochures for products often justify the use of expensive photography and

glossy paper• manuals may be printed by an outside vendor.



1.5. Recognizing Constraints 1.5.4. Availability of Information

Very often only a single person (a “guru”) knows the facts about a forthcoming design. For example,• Usually key reports are available only to those with certain security

clearances.• Some information may be filed in a government document depository 100

kms away. All such factors affect your writing.



Rating Scale for Situational Analysis - Page 6Sample Student Portfolio - Situational Analysis - Page 110Topic:• Choosing the Best Franchising Opportunity: Comparisons Between Starbucks

and Kahve DünyasıAre there any problems with the sample ?• Constraints?

Format: Recommendation Schedule: 14 weeks Budget: None Availability of information: None

NEXT WEEK

Portfolio Task 1:Conducting the Situational Analysis (In-class Writing)

• Make sure you have chosen a topic.

• Bring a copy of the situational analysis assignment sheet on page 10.

Documents

CANKAYA UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNIT