Technical Communication Level I Training

Technical Communication Level I Training

Technical Communication Level I Training Course Description

Technical communication level I training teaches you the requirements for planning, creating, and developing technical documentation from the initial step to the end. You will learn how to recognize your audience and their needs, identify suitable formatting and framework for the document, enhancing the precision and arrangement of your writing, review it, and edit and proofread your own work more efficiently. You will also learn how to be an effective team player, as well as to improve your oral communication and presentation skills that can increase the chance of your success in the field of technical communication.

Technical communication training teaches you the tools to transfer the scientific, engineering, or other technical information. Professionals in diverse fields and with various professional backgrounds can be involved in technical communication, among which some are chosen as technical communicators. Such professional apply a series of means and techniques to research, document, and demonstrate technical procedures or products. Technical communicators include the information they obtain in the paper documents, web pages, computer-based training, digitally stored text, audio, video, and other media.

The Society for Technical Communication describes the technical communication as any type of communication method that concentrates on technical and specialized subjects, interacts specifically by applying technique or delivers guidelines on how to do something. More concisely, the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators describes technical communication as realistic communication, often about products and services. Also, the European Association for Technical Communication refers to technical communication as defining, generating and providing information goods for the safe, effective and accurate application of products (technical systems, software, services).

Audience

Technical communication level I training is a 2-day course designed for:

• Teachers
• Journalists
• IT professionals
• Project managers
• Engineers
• Principal investigators
• Graduate students
• Scientists
• All the individuals who need to publish, demonstrate, and share their technical outcomes with others

Training Objectives

Upon the completion of Technical communication level I training, the attendees are able to:

• Communicate effectively technical documents, manuals and white papers
• Evaluate their audience and create documents to fulfill their needs
• Construct effective sentences to elaborate information clearly
• Apply diagrams, tables, charts and other visualizing methods efficiently
• Generate instructive material that their audience could comprehend and apply
• Arrange technical documents
• Present professional-looking documents
• Edit and proofread technical documents
• Develop a proper style for their technical writing
• Apply graphics to improve the technical documents
• Develop webpage, social media posts, and blogs to serve their technical agenda
• Function as part of a technical writing team
• Perform user testing
• Use the fundamentals of plain English to documents in their profession
• Develop a series of high-quality materials to illustrate effective communication practices
• Analyze, review, and edit professional and technical writing
• Determine the main elements of the communication process
• Determine common issues that could happen in the communication process
• Know how to overcome these issues
• Illustrate enhanced awareness of types of communication and social performance
• Determine and apply strategies for managing certain frameworks of communication, including giving presentations

Course Outline

Overview of Technical Communication

• Definition of technical communication
• Various features of technical communication
• Benefits and challenges
• Knowing your audience

Technical Content Development Process

• Understanding the purpose
• Recognizing the audience
• Gathering the required information
• Arranging and outlining information
• Write it down
• Revising and editing
  • Modifying the content
  • Editing the style
  • Editing for grammar

Audience Analysis

• Seeking potential audience
  • Questionnaires
  • Popular stereotypes
  • Personal experience
  • Brainstorming
  • Audience feedback
• Environment and Expectations
• Developing a straightforward instruction for a persona
• Generating a persona based on the research outcome
• Developing an introduction to a product for your persona

 The Six B’s of Communication to Avoid

• Bullying
• Begging
• Bothering
• Bribing
• Backscratching
• Befriending

Researching and Interviewing

• Importance of research before an Interview
• Tools
• Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) characteristics
  • Intellectually competitive
  • Exchange simplicity for control
  • Passion for complexity
  • Often disapproving of “users”
  • Lack vision of big picture
• Tips for getting information out of SMEs

Organizing the Masses of Information

• Defining the digestible part of information
• Framework and function
• The Importance of Structure
• Hierarchical structures
• Horizontal structure
• Linear and non-linear structures
• Structural clash

Effective Technical Writing Process

• Goal and purposes
• Important information
• Sentence construction
• Concise communication principals
  • Avoiding the obvious
  • Avoiding padding
  • Avoiding redundancy
  • Avoiding verbosity
  • Avoiding pomposity
• Clear wiring
• Using active voice
• Present tensing
• Grammatical person
• Consistency
• Actions verbs and directions
• Punctuation matters
• Formatting and style

Development Tools

• Problems-techniques-outcomes
• Effect and cause
• Order of importance

Graphical Tools

• Chunking the document
• Using images, drawings, graphs, and video
• Taking advantage of colors, but don’t overdo
• Focusing graphics

Communication Skills

• Communication process
• Active listening
• Non-verbal communication skills
• Constructive feedbacks
• Questioning skills
• Effective presentation

TONEX Hands-On Workshop Sample

• Understanding the objectives
• Identifying your audience
• Performing all the technical writing process
• Performing the oral communication tools
• Giving effective presentation

Technical Communication Level I Training