Technical Writing Workshop | BUT 2024

Learn the essentials of technical communication in IT in a week-long course at the Brno University of Technology.

Disclaimer: This is a pilot version of the course.

General Information:

Course Objectives:

• Give students an overview of the technical writing industry and help them acquire the knowledge and skills required for a technical writer job role.
• Prepare students to write better documentation for their future projects.
• Train purposeful, minimalist writing and clear communication.

Course Outcomes:

• Understand technical writing principles, goals, and audience.
• Participate actively in writing activities. Students will be able to produce documents related to technology by writing clearly, concisely, and logically.
• Get an overview of tools used in technical writing and learn more about cross-team collaboration.

Information Only for BUT Students - Spring 2024:

For information about assessment, homework and grading, see Information for BUT students - spring 2024.

Lecture Overview:

The lecture overview is only tentative.

1. Introduction to Technical Writing:

• Organization and requirements
• Definition and purpose of technical writing
• A day in the life of a technical writer
• Types of technical documentation and their specifics
• Target audience, grading, and using AI tools in this course
• In-class assignment

Style I:

• Comparison of writing styles, objectives of technical writing style: Accessibility, Readability, Searchability
• Homework

2. Style II:

• Minimalism, modularity and structure
• User focus and information flow
• Writing for global audiences
• In-class assignment

Style guides:

• Why and how they are useful, various major style guides for technical writing (IBM, Microsoft, Google), comparison, common principles, applying them in practice

3. Tools:

• Introduction to markup languages and text editors
• Creating and generating documentation using Markdown
• Introduction to Git, setting up and using Git command line and GitHub
• In-class assignment

4. Hard skills:

• Definition of hard skills in technical writing, why we need them
• Product knowledge, overview of the development cycle and the documentation’s place in it
• Collaborating with product owners, engineers, QE, support teams
• Content strategy, release management, planning for tech writing, how to create technical content

Soft skills:

• Empathy, ethics, cultural awareness, communication skills, curiosity, proactivity, editorial skills, time management

5. Usability:

• Real-life usability of documented products
• Designing user experience, 10 usability heuristics, practical applicability of documentation

Large language models and generative tools:

• How they (don’t) work in technical writing, how they can be useful to writers, risks, practice