Technical Writing
Semester VI · BCA 354 · 2 credits
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The syllabus asks for
- What is technical writing?
- Know your audience
- Define the purpose
- Organise: the pyramid and the outline
- The writing process
- Document design
- Testing documents with readers
- Seeing the ideas: tools, manuals, signs and the shape of a message
Key points
- Technical writing serves the reader's task; qualities are clarity, concision, correctness, completeness, coherence, courtesy and concreteness.
- Profile the audience (knowledge, task, environment, language) and state the purpose in one sentence with a verb.
- Put the answer first (inverted pyramid), organise by the reader's tasks, use outlines, chunking, lists and tables.
- Process: plan, draft, revise, edit and proofread in separate passes, then test with real readers.
- Design (headings, warnings, steps, accessibility) is part of the message.
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The syllabus asks for
- Rules of clear technical sentences
- Parallelism, lists and consistency
- Measuring readability
- Common problems in Nepali English writing
- Seeing the ideas: scores and sentence surgery
Key points
- Write short, active sentences with strong verbs, concrete words, specific numbers and consistent terms; cut deadwood and noun stacks.
- Use parallel structure in lists and headings; stay consistent in terms, numbers, dates and units.
- Flesch Reading Ease = 206.835 − 1.015(w/s) − 84.6(y/w); FK = 0.39(w/s) + 11.8(y/w) − 15.59; Fog = 0.4[(w/s) + 100(c/w)]. They measure sentence and word length only.
- The heavy sentence scores FK 19.0 and Fog 21.7; its seven-word rewrite scores FK 4.0 and Fog 8.5.
- Common errors by Nepali writers include articles, over-formal phrases, prepositions and ambiguous dates.
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The syllabus asks for
- The documents of a software project
- Writing requirements
- README files, tutorials and user guides
- API documentation and OpenAPI
- Runbooks and postmortems
- The small documents
- Seeing the ideas: the four kinds of documents and the life of an incident
Key points
- Each document serves a reader at a time: SRS (agree), README (start), guide (do), reference (look up), runbook (respond), postmortem (learn).
- Requirements use "shall", one idea each, with testable numbers; vague words (fast, user-friendly, etc.) are defects; a linter can flag them.
- A README gets a reader to a first success in minutes; user guides are task-based numbered procedures; error messages say what, why and what to do.
- OpenAPI makes API documentation machine-checkable; the example checker found missing summaries and undocumented 4xx responses.
- Runbooks give exact steps for on-call; blameless postmortems end in owned, dated action items.
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The syllabus asks for
- The research proposal
- The structure of a paper or report: IMRaD
- The literature review
- Citing sources
- Plagiarism and academic integrity
- Seeing the ideas: the library, the hourglass and two citation styles
Key points
- A proposal states a specific problem, answerable research questions, a review ending in a gap, a method, scope, timeline and references.
- Papers follow IMRaD; a structured abstract has background, objective, method, results with numbers and conclusion.
- A literature review synthesises by theme; record sources in a table.
- Cite in one consistent style (IEEE numeric, APA author–date); store reference data once and let tools format it.
- Quote, paraphrase or summarise with citation; patchwork copying is plagiarism; similarity scores screen, humans judge; disclose and verify AI assistance.
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The syllabus asks for
- Words, tables, charts or diagrams?
- Tables
- Charts: choose by the question
- Colour and accessibility
- Technical diagrams
- Slides and posters
- Seeing the ideas: honest axes, chart choice and contrast
Key points
- Choose the medium by purpose: tables for exact values, charts for patterns, diagrams for structure; every graphic is referred to, numbered, captioned and self-explanatory.
- Chart type follows the question; bars start at zero; the lie factor measures distortion (a truncated bar chart showing 5% as 100% has a lie factor of 20.0).
- Never rely on colour alone; WCAG contrast needs 4.5:1 for body text; #999999 on white gives 2.85:1 and fails.
- Diagrams carry one message with consistent notation; slides carry one idea with a headline sentence.
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The syllabus asks for
- Levels of editing
- A concision edit, executed
- Professional email and messages
- Reports, minutes, CVs and cover letters
- Ethics in technical communication
- Seeing the ideas: the four edits, the handwritten letter and the first meeting
Key points
- Edit in levels (substantive, copy, proofread, technical) from large to small; use a checklist, rest, read aloud and verify every number.
- Scripted replacements remove deadwood: the sample paragraph fell from 44 to 22 words (50.0% shorter); a human must still review them.
- Emails need an action-oriented subject, the main point first and a clear next step; minutes record decisions and owned actions; CVs show measurable results.
- Ethical communication is honest, credits sources, protects confidentiality, warns of risk and is accessible.
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The paper
TU assessment: 60% final examination set by the university, 40% internal (assignments, lab work, attendance). Confirm the split in your college's notice.
Where the hours go
Teaching hours are the board's guide to how much of the paper each part carries.
- Unit 3 · Software Documentation - SRS, README, API Reference, Runbooks and Postmortems9 h
- Unit 2 · Style, Clarity and Readability8 h
- Unit 4 · Research Proposals, Academic Writing and Citation8 h
- Unit 6 · Editing, Professional Communication and Ethics8 h
- Unit 5 · Visual Communication - Tables, Charts, Diagrams and Slides7 h
- Unit 1 · Audience, Purpose and the Writing Process5 h