Process, policies, and procedures: what do students need to learn?
On August 18, 2006, Kaye Adkins, Associate Professor of English/Technical Communication at Missouri Western State University, asked the Policies and Procedures SIG email list of STC for advice about what skills the students in the senior-level course titled “Technical Documentation and Editing” should learn to prepare them for writing policies and procedures, and what she could do in the course that would prepare students for the job market. What workplace and writing issues should students be introduced to?
Chris Whalley, member of the Puget Sound chapter and the Policies and Procedures and Single Sourcing SIGs replied.
Chris suggested that students learning technical skills in college need more training in general business skills, so they will understand the connection between technical skills and the business operations as a whole.
Technical communicators with this knowledge can sell their tech comm ideas to management, and move into management positions, because they can talk about the numbers related to technical communication, and not just about writing and editing. Examples of the skills to develop include:
Analyzing the return-on-investment (ROI) of a new business process or software application
Estimating the time required to write a document
Estimating or forecasting the cost of projects and documents
Calculating the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a given software application
Diagraming and flowcharting a business process (including the document development process)
Chris suggested that a basic course in ergonomics and health care issues for technical communicators, covering set up of the workspace and computers, would also be useful.
Kaye has been gradually sharpening the focus of the course to emphasize policy and procedure writing in addition to the technical editing. The final project in the course is a collaborative project for a real client. For example, in the past, students have created a policy guide for the campus tutoring center, and training and procedural materials for a local restaurant. You can see the online materials for the course.
October 17th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
I just joined STC and this SIG. If my comments miss or repeat what others have already said, please excuse me.
I agree that policy and procedure writing needs all of these skills. But most of the policies and procedures I see (and have to improve) have defects in clarity, complexity, and cohesion.
Experience has taught me that policy and procedure writing should follow Plain Language principles. This means using:
- Simple words and sentences wherever possible
- A reading level appropriate to the intended audience
- High cohesion
- Active voice, unless passive voice serves a verifiable need
- Short paragraphs
- Bullet and number lists instead of comma separated lists
- Tables and other visual formatting techniques
- NO undefined acronyms
Courses can teach these concepts and skills to those who need courses. I think most technical writers can learn them through self-study and a LOT of practice. I have used Plain Language for over thirty years and only recently learned it is an international movement.
Also, combining Plain Language with Information Mapping can provide even better results.