Are you planning on entering a technical communication competition? Then today's guest blog post from Francis Bao, a senior member in the Chicago Chapter, is for you.
All technical communicators expect their work to be recognized, and they always seek effective ways to improve their writing skills. Technical communication competitions give technical writers opportunities to display their abilities for creating eye-catching masterpieces. What are the key elements for winning a technical communication competition? What kind of quality are judges looking for during their judging process? To answer these questions, I would like to provide some important tips that will help communication professionals win the competitions. These tips include identifying the purpose of the work, choosing simplified sentence structure, creating supportive visual elements, and developing an effective table of content.
Identifying the purpose of the work is the most important step, which leads the entry in a right direction. What kind of audience is the work targeting? Is it for internal audience or public audience? Once the target audience is identified, the content of the work will focus on the specific readers. For example, an organizational manual is mainly for employees of an organization; it may include company introduction, policies and procedures, employee benefits, etc. Promotional material is for a public audience, and it consists of technologies and functions of products as well as service information from the manufacturers. When you write the work, the purpose of writing should be stated clearly so that readers will be able to locate useful information they are searching for.
Choosing simplified sentence structure is a key factor, which makes writing concise for a technical communication competition. In a scientific or a technical document, sentences should be written in a short and straight-forward manner. Technical writers should avoid long sentences since long sentences may contain complicated clauses that will confuse readers who are trying to locate technical information. For example, a user manual contains information for operating a product; if the sentence length is more than 20 words, users will have difficulty to catch the main idea or may even be misled. Readability of the manual will decrease significantly.
All acronyms in the description should be spelled out when they appear in the document for the first time. Readers will be able to understand the technical terms easily when they are fully spelled out.
Creating supportive visual elements is a major component of writing for a technical communication competition. These visual elements will help enhance the meaning of the content. Artwork such as colors, shading, table, chart, and photo illustrates the most important theme of a technical document. Audience uses these visual elements as a guide to learn technologies and product information. Software guides, promotional material, informational material, installation guides, and testing reports should consist of these features to help readers to learn and master the technical information. Colors and shading highlight the most significant parts of the content. Tables and charts list all important data of a technical product. Photos illustrate major steps of installation procedures. When designing the content, all graphics and images should be placed next to the text. Judges of a technical communication contest are always looking for these visual elements as they read through the description of the entry and see if the two components will match.
In addition, the layout of a technical document will also impact the work submitted to a competition. A sharp looking entry always uses large amount of white space to attract eyes of judges and also impress readers. Therefore, always make sure that you use as much white space as you can in your document.
Developing an effective table of content is another important factor that will affect judging process. A thoroughly designed table of content should accurately list all main titles and subtitles, as well as page numbers on which these titles are located. This is a very basic part of the judging process that all judges have to go through. Readers use the table of content to navigate a technical document as they are reading it. For this reason, an effective table of content will function as a navigation tool and will help readers find particular information fast and easily.
Another two vital elements in a better designed technical document are callout and note. They will list the most significant information of each section or chapter of the document and help readers recall those vital pieces of information later. These two elements are often used in software guides, installation manuals, technical testing reports, and informational material. Using the two functions properly will increase the level of award in a technical communication contest.
If you want your work to be recognized and hope to build up your professional reputation, you should follow these tips. Before submitting your entries to a regional or international technical communication competition, always check to see if the purpose of the work has been identified, if the sentence structure is concise, if the visual elements have been developed effectively to support the content, and if the table of content has been designed to assist navigation of your work. Not only will these factors catch eyes of judges, but also they will impact the quality of your writing as a technical communicator.
Francis Bao has been a senior member of the STC Chicago Chapter since 1997. He owns his technical writing and translation consulting company in the Chicagoland area. He has served as treasurer, vice president, president, and immediate past president in the chapter. He is currently the sponsorship manager, nominating committee member, and member of the Chicago eLearning and Technology Showcase Advisory Committee. He is also a member of STC International Technical Communication SIG. He has won several professional awards in the past years such as Chicago Chapter annual competition award, APEX awards, President Award, Distinguished Chapter Service Award, Robert G. Frank Award (highest membership award of Chicago Chapter), and Volunteer of the Year Award. When he was the chapter president, Chicago Chapter won the Community of Distinction Award (2009) He has also written a number of articles for the chapter newsletter, Byline, and the STC-ITC SIG blog. He published a theoretical paper in Society’s magazine, Intercom. He has served as a competition judge for more than 6 years.