Professor Ellis will post examples of Technical Writing and Technical Communication on this page for our discussion in class. If you find examples that you’d like to share for discussion, email them to Prof. Ellis at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu.
Technical Reports
Table of Contents
This report was produced by the Georgia Tech Archives and Special Collections on “Retrogaming in the GT Archives.”
Star Trek TNG A Final Unity Video Game with installation, game manuals, and other package inserts.
Lab Manuals
Chemistry Sets include manuals that describe how to use and care for the included equipment, methodologies for experiments, and instructions on how to record results.
Discipline-Specific Writing
Discipline-specific writing such as monographs (books about one subject), collections (books with contributed by different authors), and journals (typically peer-reviewed publications that share newly discovered knowledge in a specific field) are types of technical writing.Trade magazines share discipline-specific information that focuses on reporting and disseminating actionable information instead of vetting and sharing knowledge (as in the case of monographs, collections, and journals above).
Presentations
Professional presentations are examples of technical communication. They rely on WOVEN–written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal modes of communication to engage an audience, provide complex information in an easy to digest form, and create synergy between the modes used to convey the information to the audience for maximum impact and retention.
Posters
Posters for professional presentation or trade shows summarize important information for visitors to read and see, and these informational bites can jumpstart conversations and questions with the presenter.
Infographics
This museum infographic provides viewers with an overview of BSG storyline across the 1979 and 2003 series.
Signage
This Apple II display at the Computer Museum of America provides context for the object being displayed.Signs can tell you where you are.Signs can tell you where to go.Signs can tell you what to do.
Advertisements
Advertisements that communicate technical information for a specific audience are another form of technical writing. In this case, this is a 2-page ad for System 7 for Apple Macintosh.Similarly, Intergraph’s advertisement for Microstation 5 uses images and words to convey complex information about this computer aided design software. Note the person-shaped word cloud and how some words are highlighted.
Blog Posts, Social Media, and Online Writing
Online writing, such as on a website, a blog, or social media, is another form of technical writing. This is an example of building instructions for a sparring lightsaber on my personal blog.
This postage stamp from the Czech Republic celebrates Andrew Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Consider how the design of the stamp describes the theorem and Wiles’ contribution to proving it.
