Communication Professionally and Technically: Technical Communication is the exchange of information that helps people interact with technology, advance workplace goals, and solve complex problems. When you purchase a cell phone, you turn to the user manual. When you install a new device, from a DVD player to a microwave oven to a cable modem or computer, you look for the setup information as soon as you open the box.
Technical
communication is relevant in our daily lives like how I set up my new web camera,
Which button on the ATM I press to obtain my monthly activity summary, how I paste a digital photo into a text document
and resize the image, etc. In the workplace,, we are consumers of technical communication and producers. People might need the information to
complete a task, answer questions, solve a problem, or make a decision. Any
document or presentation we prepare at work (memo, letter, report, Web page, and
PowerPoint presentation) should advance the goals of the intended audience. On the job, Technical communication might answer questions such as these: What is our competition doing
and how should we respond? What new government regulation should we address? What
new technology should our company be thinking about?
A physician
performing heart surgery must have clear information about how to install a
pacemaker. A government research
scientist must have accurate instructions about writing a grant or performing a particular experiment. An engineer must have access to the correct
specifications for designing a bridge or configuring a software application. In
specialized settings, technical communication answers questions such as these: Do the benefits of
the Lyme disease vaccine outweigh its risk? What are the technical limits to
wind energy? How effectively will the heating system circulate on the top
floors of the new office complex?
Features of a technical document: Reader-based: you research, write, and design your message not from your personal perspective but according to the needs of your readers. Professors and teachers read to test your knowledge, but colleagues, customers, and supervisors will read to use your knowledge. Task-oriented: Technical document is typically oriented towards completing a task or solving a problem, rather than supporting a personal stance. Design-based: a Technical document may take the form of a brochure, a memo, a report with different sections, a numbered set of instructions, a blog, or a Web Technical Communication, and also includes using visuals, working with digital, media, and making oral presentations.
Virtually all professionals, at some point function as technical communicators. Experts in any field are often required to present their knowledge. A manager preparing a presentation for a client would need to create clear concise PPT slides. The writer of instructions for uploading a new software would need to make sure that a general audience could perform the task without having to call customer service. Writing can be broadly classified into two categories: fiction and nonfiction. The novelists, short-story writers, poets, screenwriters, and playwrights who produce fiction manipulate words and language to create scenes, moods, and effects so readers can feel as though they are unobserved, passive participants in the events described. Nonfiction writers present facts and data in a variety of formats, including magazine and newspaper articles, books (textbooks, biographies, travel guides, and more), booklets, reports, brochures, memoirs, manuals, and journals.
Technical writers must remain objective ( should be able to place things in their proper perspective, unaffected by personal bias.) and factual about the subject matter they are dealing with. Their sole function is to write dispassionately about facts and objects and to relate useful, relevant, reliable information that readers can understand. The language they use must be simple and direct. Technical Document rarely focuses on the author's personal thoughts and feelings. The needs of your readers should come first. Users of technical communication are only interested in you, the communicator, to the extent that they want to know what you have done, what you recommend, or how to speak for your company. Hence Technical communication is “user-centered” communication.