Writing Technical Documentation
Aims
Goal: write documentation a new colleague can follow on day one without asking you anything — specific steps, stated prerequisites, real examples.
The lesson, stage by stage
- Warm up5 min
Warm-up: Documentation someone can actually follow
2 warm-up questions
- Reading10 min
Reading: The Art of Technical Writing
Read a 184-word text about The Art of Technical Writing
- Vocabulary8 min
Vocabulary: Technical Documentation Vocabulary
7 items
- Reading10 min
Reading: A model README, written in full
Read a 241-word text about A model README, written in full
- Practice7 min
Practice: Fix the Documentation
Error-correction exercise, 4 items
- Practice7 min
Practice: Technical Writing Precision
Gap-fill exercise, 5 items
- Dialogue10 min
Dialogue: Documentation Review Meeting
Role-play: Your team lead asks you to improve documentation for a new feature (3 lines)
- Discussion10 min
Discussion: Your mission: the day-one test
3 discussion questions
Open the full lesson
The remaining 7 stages of this lesson, with the procedure, the examples and the exercises, are included with Starter, along with the interactive version you can teach from. Lesson 1 of this course is free: the full plan is on this site, and a free account opens it in the interactive player.
Target vocabulary
In a Tuton account these words become your student's vocabulary deck, so they come back in practice between lessons.
This plan comes from the Tech Workplace Communication course in the Tuton library. Browse all free lesson plans.