Writing the First Draft, Part 1
I got a great request from John in a comment. He suggested blogging about how technical writers prepare their first drafts--how they get started creating a document out of a bunch of facts and features. That's such an interesting topic I'd like to get as many people as I can to talk about how they do it.
I start with my own experience and then talk with two of the writers on my team, Norm Estabrook and McLean Schofield. The drafting process for each of us starts with gathering all the available information into some central location and then organizing it, but we each have our own methods for gathering and organizing.
This podcast is 9 MB in size, and is 12 minutes, 3 seconds long.
Comments
- Anonymous
August 25, 2006
I usually start by searching on the web for basic concepts and gathering the information. Generally I prefer to look for people who are experts or related to the subject area and look for a slot of their time to catch their insight. I also look for documents which might be similar or related to the one I have to produce.
For step two I have some basic templates for the types of documents I have to produce, so I just brainstorm and fill the template up.
Once I feel I have enough information and have a decent mind map of the subject area in my brain, I start to organize the information and write the draft of the document. - Anonymous
December 02, 2006
The comment has been removed