Not surprisingly, many people associate technical writing with providing instructions on how to operate machinery or software – and even although there is much more to technical writing than this, writing instructions is certainly a central task. There is an art to giving instructions – you have to provide all the relevant details needed to complete the task, and you have to do it in such a way that others can easily follow.

Over the years I’ve found that before you can give instructions, you need to know how to follow instructions.  The person who knows how to interpret someone else’s instructions and follow them to the last detail, will generally have the ability to provide good instructions to others as well. Again, the main skill is processing information in a methodical way, line by line, without skipping any important details.

A common mistake is to unconsciously rely on your own knowledge to fill in the gaps in your instructions – leaving your reader confused. Think of giving directions to someplace – if you say “when you get through the main gate, turn right” you may be forgetting that there is a small dirt road going to the right, just before the right turn that you had in mind. On the other hand, providing too many details is almost as bad -  “you’ll pass a park with a slide, a swing, and a sandbox which my children enjoyed playing in last summer when we first moved in” – the listener tunes out, and tries to just pay attention to the details that provide a clear path to the destination.

Following and Writing Instructions

Let’s try an exercise in following and giving instructions - provide line by line instructions for solving the following problem:

You are given the following:

• 9 liter container
• 4 liter container
• Pond with lots of water

Doctor’s orders – you must drink exactly 6 liters a day – no more, and no less. There are no more containers – you must use only the two containers and the pond. And you can’t make any marks on the containers.

Your Task
Write a clear, easy to follow explanation of how to get to 6 liters.

Click here to view the answer.