Technical Writing – Common Mistakes For Authors

Technical authors work in the most structured way possible, failure to do so can cause a significant impact not just on the document itself but also on the project team ultimately responsible for the delivery of the overall product.
Here are some often found errors made by writers on these projects and how to avoid them.
Failure to understand the product or its use
It’s obvious, but clearly not to everyone. Before you can begin creating documentation for a user, you need to understand the purpose of your work. Not just what the manual is about, but more importantly what it’s for.
If you can’t articulate the concepts clearly to yourself, you can’t do if for anyone else. You can cure this simply by asking more questions to build up a better picture of what must be delivered.
Recycling the data from a Subject Matter Expert
You’re the writer, the Subject Matter Expert is the person who will guide your understanding of the product but they’re not there to do your job.
Which is to make their explanations work for everyone, a technical writer is the project communicator. You take input from the whole team and decide how you’ll deliver the message in the most effective way.
Avoid this by remembering you’re not paid to be a copy editor, whatever other people believe this work is creative and that’s what you’ve been engaged to be.
Working without a Plan
No plan is a recipe for failure in almost every area of life, but particularly when compiling a wide-range of documentation. How do you even know what to charge for a project if you haven’t scoped out the time and deliverables involved?
A simple plan is all that’s needed:
A list of all deliverables (chapters or individual docs) including timescales, revisions, etc.
Your naming conventions for both documents and files
The storage locations of the above and specific delivery plans for each item (by post or e-mail? On CD or soft copy?)
After that all you need to do is plan the content of each document.
Poor Ordering
Your documents should lead the user through a process, step-by-step or focus on translating a big picture to a more individual one. This means you need to pay attention to the process yourself, and be consistent in the way you portray similar steps and that your steps flow properly from one to another.
These are just a few of the common failures in technical documentation, as a true professional you cannot afford to be caught out. Take the time to make sure your writing isn’t suffering from them.