Blog Post One
As you can see from my first blog title, I am not so much what one would call “a creative”. I like to stick to the facts and keep things clean and simple. I would like to use this blog as resource for sharing helpful information, lessons learned, formatting tips, and my technical writing best practices.
Let’s start with my top 5 technical writing dos and don’ts. These rankings tend to shift around depending on the day and what I am working on, but it is a good place to start:
DO: Use the tab function or tables to structure forms with lines. This means, DO NOT just hit the underscore button to the edge of the page.
Why? Using underscore key means that your line ends very rarely line up at the edge. It also means you have to backspace or add more when you change things around. Using tabs or tables means you can easily change all or most of your line lengths with one click. Save time, keep things clean, don’t overuse the underscore key. Want to learn more? Check out this Blog Post.
DO: Create new Styles if you are repeating a specific format more than 3 times. It might take a couple more minutes at the beginning, but will make your life oh-so-much easier when making changes later! This means, DO NOT start selecting text and manually changing font size or features like bold, italics etc unless it is a truly unique part of the document.
Why? Saving a Style means you can just type away and then select and set styles once you clarify your sections. Best of all… if at the end of the day you want to change something (for example, you want all your chapter headings to be 14pt font instead of 16pt you can simply modify the style and they are all fixed throughout the document. Want to learn more? Check out this Blog Post.
DO: Take the time in document planning to CHUNK YOUR CONTENT. This is an Information Mapping concept but can also be applied to regular “old fashioned” outline format SOPs. In essence this means grouping information into chunks of about 4-9 pieces of related information. If you start drifting into >10 pieces of information within one section look for a finer level of detail to chunk your information. If you only have 1 or 2 pieces of information, see if you can combine it with another small chunk.
Why? Chunking helps you from repeating yourself and keeps related information together to make it easier for the reader to find.
DO: Keep the responsibilities section to a high level summary. This means, DO NOT repeat every responsibility in the procedure in responsibilities section!
Why? This allows the reader to scan the responsibilities to section to get an idea for who has generally what level of responsibilities in the procedure. The individual steps themselves should call out the responsible role for each activity. It also prevents misalignment within the SOP during edits. Want to learn more? Check out this Blog Post.
DO: Use active voice. For example, use “complete the form with xyz information” instead of “the form is to be completed with xyz information.”
Why? It’s just easier to read, and often saves words.
Happy writing!
