IT Communication Assignment: Documentation Discussion Question

Why is documentation important in the technical writing process? What positive and negative occurrences have you run into while using different documentation styles?

Documentation is important in the technical writing process because it adds two specific elements to your writing: professionalism and credibility. I feel that technical writing is read by a certain target audience; these are people that are reading your writing to be informed of something. Technical writing is not something that is used to be read casually – it is either written for work which demands professionalism, or it is written for some sort of educational purpose which also demands professionalism.

By using the correct documentation and “giving credit where credit is due”, it also gives your technical writing credibility. No longer is the reader reading the mad ranting of Nick Taylor; now they are reading a form of writing that there has been some form of collaboration on. It changes your writing from being the possibility of being opinion, to factual technical writing.

An obvious positive effect of using documentation in your technical writing is the fact that your writing is suddenly professional, credible, and “legitimate” whereas it might not have appeared so previously.

One negative occurrence that I had before was trying to document everything correctly. It seemed like such a hassle trying to remember every different rule, method, and format – similar to math! However, Ms. Troxler posted a link that I was unaware of that I think might be one of the best resources out there for correctly formatted papers – the Citation Generator. I’ve explored this tool a little bit and it is a life saver. It made my negative of documentation obsolete.