New Section: Elements, Part 2

I’ve just posted the second half of the Chapter titled: The Elements of Technical Writing. I also posted an update to the first section. Here are links to both:

• Elements of Technical Writing, Part 1
• Elements of Technical Writing, Part 2

As always, your comments and suggestions are solicited.

New Section: Elements, Part 1

I’ve just posted a new section, which is the first part of a chapter titled: The Elements of Technical Writing. It’s available at:

Elements of Technical Writing, Part 1

I’m still not sure if this is too much or too little detail for the context, which is a section that gives managers who’ve never been a technical writer an overview of the elements of technical writing.

In addition to input on the level of detail, I’d also be glad to get information on other aspects of technical documentation that you think would fit.

Finally, this posting discusses the first three of seven elements. The second part will be posted shortly.

Some thoughts and questions

First off, I apologize for missing a week of sections. I over-committed myself last week and into this week, and I’ve had trouble keeping up. But, I’ll be back with a new posting in a few days and will be back on track.

In the meantime, I’ve been considering a few questions and would welcome any comments:

1. How much of the basics of technical writing should I include? I’ve been writing a chapter titled “The Elements of Technical Writing,” which is meant to give managers who aren’t technical writers a better idea of what technical writing is all about. But, I don’t know if it makes sense to expand that into a more detailed tutorial that could be used by new technical writers. Since there’s already a lot of good material available in other books, I’m not sure how useful it would be. Any thoughts?
2. My list of the Elements of Technical Writing are the following: product/service, developers, audience, tasks, deliverables, writing environment (tools, etc.), and schedule. Did I miss anything important?

Right now, besides the Elements chapter, I’ve got a chapter on planning percolating, so I hope to be back at full speed posting to the site very soon.