Story of Technical WritingHistory o

Story of Technical WritingHistory of WritingLanguage was born at the same time as man was created. Language existed long before writing came into existence. The advent of writing can be said to have emerged when man started to settle down. The initial writing was found in the form of pictures. Egyptians developed the most famous and well-known form of picture writing known as the hieroglyphics (Larkin, 1999).Early WritingInitially man used to express and record through signs and pictures on the walls of caves and later on clay tablets. The Mesopotamians developed one of the earliest writing systems, they had specialist known as scribes. These scribes were the only ones who could write. Their writing system was essentially used to measure barley, which was considered the most important commodity at that time. (Larkin 1999)Writing SystemsAs time progressed and man just passed these signs became more sophisticated and instruments for writing were developed. Cuneiform script came into existence and it was used in different cities to record a variety of information such as temple activities, business and trade. Eventually it wa1; also used to write stories, myths and personal letters. It is debated that writing systems were developed in four major civilization: lndus lndia, in Ancient Chinese,Mesopotamian, and Egyptian independently but around the same time. (Daniels & Bright 1996)During the Golden age of Islam, the Arabic script was used prominently everywhere and it became one of the world's standard scripts. As man evolved so did writing, the Greeks developed the earliest ways of writing which is quite similar to ' the modern Writing system.They Used to write, with a metal Stylus on wax-coated tablets.The invention and use of the link, by Chinese took writing to new heights. Advancement in technologies altered what was written and how it was produced. by the end of the 16th century the old Roman and Greek letters were transformed into twenty-six alphabets letters, as we know today. Writing in EducationFormal education played a significant role in bringing the writing to masses. This changed the nature of writing and evolved into the form we know now.Writing is considered a very powerful learning tool and plays a very crucial role in our education. It helps us discover new information, ideas, evaluate our thoughts and opinions. Writing is broadly divided into fiction and non-fiction. Fiction is a kind of writing that deals with ideas or events that are imaginary or theoretical whereas non-fiction is a kind of writing that is based on facts and information. Major types of non-fiction literature are essays, journals, memoirs, technical documentation/writing, scientific papers, travel books, blue prints and user manuals.What is technical writing?Technical writing is a kind of non-fiction writing it is used for technical communication and is often associated with help files and user manuals procedure ' is one of the important uses of technical writing is the step-by-step explanation of how to do things, for example. assemble a machine repair, maintenance, routine Saturday, something recipe to make something. It focuses onsimplifying something which is complex. It can be said that technical writing involves creating useful documents that can be clearly understood by the readers of good technical writing presents useful information in a way that is easily understood by the users. The origin of technical writing can be traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote "Treatise of Astrolabe" the first technical writing in the English Language. This treatise is considered the oldest work in English is self-describing a complex scientific instrument. This document is admired for its clarity in explaining difficult concepts (North, 1988).technical writing as a discipline came into existence around the world war 1 due to the growing need in technology based documentation. In 1953, the society of technical writers and the association of technical writers and editors were setup to improve the Practice of technical writing. Later these two organizations merged and well-formed society of technical communication. The golden age of technical writing started with the invention of computers and the need for help files for the laymen (Alred, et al, 2006)Characteristics of good technical writingA well-written piece of technical writing presents information in a relevant, useful and accurate way, which is targeted towards a special audience. A good technical document requires the following techniques:-Clear, simple writing;-A thorough under standing of the procedure in all its technical details;-Ability to put yourself in the place of the reader, the person trying to use Your instructions; -Ability to visualize the procedure in great detail and to capture that awareness on paper;-finally, the willingness to go that extra distance and test your instructions (Alred, et al, 2006)Conclusion:of changes have taken place in the field of technical writing. Now there are specified writers called technical writers. Technical writing has is own categories. Technical writers work together with graphic designers and editors, document illustration, content managers, specialist in instructional designers, trainers, and analysts to produce an amazing variety of deliverables, including: contracts, customer service scripts, design docs, FAQs, how-to-do videos, instructions, knowledge-based articles, policy documents, user manuals, training course materials, warning labels, help files, white papers, etc.