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What It Takes To Become A Good Freelance Technical Writer

Are you interested in becoming a technical writer, but aren’t sure what skills you need to develop in order to do that? As with most forms of writing there are specific ways of writing that will be required. Once you are able to determine what qualities you need in order to write technical content then you can have success as a freelance writer. Read on for some tips to get you started.

Get To The Point

With most forms of writing you need to use descriptive words to evoke emotion. Also humor and entraining storytelling is commonly used to increase the engagement value of a piece. It is a totally different ball game when it comes to technical writing.

When doing a technical writing piece you have to get to the point as quickly as possible. The use of stats, facts and figures is encouraged to do this. Typically you should limit the amount of words that you use to the bare minimum, but don’t sacrifice on the clarity of the point that you are making.

Use Simple Language

Since technical writing is about getting to the point quickly you need to make the language as simple as possible, this is particularly advantageous when the technical idea you are presenting is a complicated one. Therefore, opt for more periods as opposed to using commas – shorter sentences are easier to understand.

Have A Strong Structure

A technical writing piece should have a very strong structure. This means if someone wanted to scan the content in order to find the information they are looking then that should be easy to do. This can be done by the use of appropriately titled sub-headings, and bolding of keywords.

Typically for technical writing pieces a pyramid structure is used. This means that the most important information is at the top. Then as you are working your way through the content the less important information should be mentioned last.

Accuracy Is important

The strength of a technical piece depends on the accuracy of the information presented. Make sure that all facts, figures and statistics are not only accurate, but also up to date. Technical writing favors those who like to spend more time researching that on the actual writing. It’s a different type of writing than most people are used to, but any writer will be able to get the hang of it with enough practice.

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