WHAT IS TECHNICAL WRITING? Myth and Reality

It is so often that technical writers are faced with the question:  What is technical writing and what do technical writers do?   Adding to this lack of understanding, are the myths surrounding the understanding of technical writing. In this blog post, let us explore the meaning and break some the myths of technical writing.

Myth 1: Technical Writing is only about writing User Manuals and Instructional Guides

Technical Writing, to a layperson appears to be that form of writing that tells people the “how to” of something. But in reality, technical writers apart from writing user guides for gadgets, applications, and products, also write a variety of other types of documents such as white papers, product literatures, business plans, proposals, training materials, functional specifications, data sheets, quick reference guides, release notes, online help, how to video’s, web pages, blogs, wikis, and internal company documents.

ADDIE Model of Instructional Designing

In Instructional Designing (ID), models are used to help designers visualize and understand an ID problem. It offers a vehicle or a means to break down a problem into manageable chunks and negotiate the design task.  There are  many ID models , but the basic ID model is that of ADDIE. The ADDIE approach of instructional designing employs five steps or phases:

ADDIE

Basic Theories of Instructional Designing

With E-learning coming of age, Instructional Designing has grown in leaps and bounds. The growing importance of Instructional Designing has led to many studies in this field, which have brought a variety of learning theories to the field of Instructional Designing.

In this post, let us know the most widely known theories of Instructional Designing:

Behaviorism:

Behaviorism as a learning theory can be dated back to Aristotle. The primary focus of the theory is to study the overt behavior that can be clearly seen and measured. This learning theory aims at shaping the behavioral

E-learning Terms and Definitions

When I made a comeback to e-learning after a gap of 8 years, what I was looking for was a jargon buster – a place where I could find out about the new buzzwords and the latest standards and technologies. Unfortunately, I did not find any such thing. I am therefore putting together a glossary with terms and acronyms that every E-learning professional should know by heart.

1. AICC (Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee)

AICC is an international association of technology-based training professionals. The AICC develops guidelines for development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT, WBT, and related training technologies. Though it was Aviation specific earlier but now is general-purpose.

2. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)

Instructional Designing (ID) – Simplified

Instructional Designing (ID) is an important part of E-learning. Although there are tens of hundreds of definitions of ID, they are so often, so heavy with e-learning jargons that a layperson never feels that he has understood the meaning of this term.

This blog post is an attempt to simplify the meaning of Instructional Designing to all and sundry.

Let us understand Instructional Designing by drawing parallels. One parallel that I can think of is a Lesson Plan.  

Take a scenario:

A New Journey

The cluster of vibrant colors leads to an abstract theme.  A theme which wants to be spoken of, but is lost within its own reasonings.

I recently entered this world of writing looking for an image, an image which would spark into a story. A word that would lead to a line and a line that would lead to a definition. It is a mysterious and diverse world which i am exploring everyday finding ways to master upon the convenient truths.

With every step I take, I stumble upon something new. It could be just another word,a new technology or maybe something to help me out on my own personal grounds.While writing,I not only learn the above benefits but also about the various technologies and process adapted by various other companies  through their given inputs.

No doubt one can take a simple picture and make a paragraph out of it. But what I am learning here is to create that paragraph in a way which is as easy and approachable for the mass.

Using Collocations

In this blog post, I’ve used a personal experience of mine to demonstrate, how by employing collocations you can achieve an ease in expression, depth in description to describe what otherwise could be simply beyond words!

Do pay attention to the collocations in bold..

Just a couple of weeks ago, we made a trip to Gangotri, the penultimate point from which the holy Ganges flows (the ultimate being Gomukh-the headwater or the source of Ganga).  Travelling from the scorching heat of the parched city of Delhi to Rishikesh, crossing over Haridwar was already getting pleasant for six of us on journey. The stopover

Collocations – words in company

Collocation – It’s Meaning and Type

Collocations can be defined as words that go together, in a set pattern of word-order, by dint of sheer habit, custom, and convention. Collocation is made of two words: co and location, and denotes to mean, to locate or place a word in company (co) of another word. In the words of Firth, collocation is defined as: “Collocations of a given word are statements of the habitual or customary places of that word.”

When collocations are first introduced, they are introduced as pair–words, a cut chase way of understanding collocation. So, we are told that words like: bread and butter, nut and bolt, hard and fast, loud and clear, are words that always go hand-in-hand, and are collocations.

The Firsts

I have spent my days stringing
And unstringing my instrument
While the song I came to sing
remains unsung.

I am haunted by these immortal lines of Tagore whilst I write this, the first ever blog post of mine.

It is not strange that when one writes the very first blog of her life, one tends to think of topics that would stir the world up, and would want the world to stand up and say:

Here’s the new age Shakespeare!