What’s the Difference Between Technical and Non-Technical Writing?

It’s actually quite simple: technical writing has technical content. That’s the bottomline. Your approach to technical writing should be the same approach you take to non-technical writing. Here is the “Checklist of the Writing Process” from the opening pages of the Handbook of Technical Writing: Establish your purpose, identify your audience, brainstorm, conduct research, outline your notes and ideas, adopt the appropriate style and tone, construct effective paragraphs. The list goes on, but it sounds familiar, right? That’s because it’s the same one you’ll find in any high school or college writing textbook. One problem with technical writing is that too many novice technical writers think that because technical subject matter is complicated, that writing about it should also be complicated. Not so. Don’t overcomplicate the skill of technical writing by thinking it’s complicated.