Technical Writing for Industrial Wastewater Operators

Steve Frank, APR, WEF Fellow SDF Communications, Inc.

[email protected]

303-957-7459

Wisdom of my 7

th

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

You Encode Source (You)

Message

Channel They Decode Receiver (Audience)

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

40 Prose literacy levels, U.S., 2013 36% 34% 30 20 14% 12% 10 4% 52% Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 48%

Other audience factors

       Age Race Language English) (11 million adults are non-literate in 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