You really know your stuff. But what happens when other people need to know what you know? Putting knowledge or expertise on paper is not as simple as just “writing it down.” For example…overheard in places where customers, co-workers, and other non-experts gather…

Q. “Do we have any instructions for this thing?”
A. “Yeah, but they’re really confusing. A committee of programmers must have put them together. I got lost at Step 3.”

Q. “What do we do next?”
A. “Do you think I have a clue? The head engineer wrote these procedures. Maybe he should try to follow them.”

Q. “Does the new formulation meet the revised viscosity requirements?”
A. “I’m not sure. The report just isn’t clear about how the evaluations were done.”

What’s going on here?

The answer is simple. Columnist Sidney J. Harris wrote about the core problem years ago in the Chicago Daily News. He said, “Information is giving out; communication is getting through.” When required information doesn’t get through from the experts to the audience, what we have, boys and girls, is a failure to communicate.

People want to know what your stuff can do for them. They want to know how to run your software efficiently, operate your equipment safely, or change the settings on your gizmo. 

Technical writing is all about giving people the information they need, making it available to them when they need it, and making sure they can use it to get the results they want.  

Subscribe to this blog today. It’s all about making sure that your message gets through.