Technical writing

This 2-day training course is for people who develop or maintain large amounts of written information such as manuals, user guides, standard operating procedures, training materials or knowledge bases.

What will I learn?

You will learn the principles of Structured Writing, a proven set of tools and techniques for:

analysing the purpose of your documentation and the needs of your audience
organising information to meet audience needs, including different information needs of different users
presenting content based on information type
creating modular content for efficient reuse and ease of maintenance, and
structuring content so that it is easy to navigate and information is easy to find.

“

Best course I’ve been on in a while. Tactics provided an in-depth look at how to structure process and procedure documents.- Workshop participant, Genesis Energy

After the first day, I felt that the penny had dropped for me, and I realised that now I have a method and techniques at my disposal in the most challenging of projects. I can now see the wood for the trees!- Luke Pivac, Genesis Energy

An extremely stimulating and interesting training workshop — the information learned will be very useful in my and my colleagues' work.- Dee Hogenes, MAF

What is Structured Writing?

Structured Writing is a modular, topic-based approach to developing documents that are easy to write, read and use. It speeds up writing time, improves reader comprehension and enables content reuse. More about Structured Writing…

Benefits

This course enables you to:

tackle your documentation project with confidence
analyse requirements and plan your approach
organise large amounts of content so users can navigate easily and find information quickly
write more and better content in less time, and
develop modular, reusable content that is easy to maintain.

What does it cover?

Topic	Description
Analysing and planning	Identifying your audience and purpose Analysing content Writing a needs analysis Outlining and planning
Effective writing principles	Proven, research-based tools and techniques for clear and effective writing
Organising content	About Structured Writing Types of information Structuring and sequencing Typical document structures
Presenting content	Best practices for presenting your content so that it is easy to read and understand
Editing and testing	Tips for editing and testing your content
Speeding up your writing	Using shortcut keys and templates
Case study	Applying your knowledge

Who teaches it?

Rhiannon Herrick is highly regarded as a writer and trainer. She has extensive experience in designing, developing and delivering written material and training writers in a variety of contexts nationally and internationally. Rhiannon is able to develop usable, reader-focussed documentation on any subject quickly and competently. She is a knowledge management specialist and qualified and experienced in analysis, design and development of high quality documentation for specific purposes for targeted audiences.