Section 1.7

Drafting a Technical Document

After you have collected your information, identified your document's purposes, objective, and audience, developed an appropriate outline, and, if appropriate, sketched out key graphics and tables, you are ready to begin writing the first draft of yourdocument.

Many writers find the following suggestions helpful in writing a first draft.

• Writing can generate new ideas. If you discover potentially relevant new ideas or approaches, include them even if they are not in your outline. You can revise your outline when you edit for organization.
• The main purpose of a first draft is to sketch out ideas in writing. Consequently, fixing specific problems in sentences, words, grammar, spelling, usage, or mechanics when writing a first draft can be distracting and can hinder the development of important and interesting ideas. Many writers just mark these problems when writing a first draft and then address them when they edit for grammar, style, and usage.
• You may find yourself needing to locate or develop additional data or to confirm already exisiting data. Marginal notes or comments in the text (e.g., "add median response time," "need figures," or "check maximum values") allow you to keep your ideas flowing.
• You do not need to write the document in the order of your outline. Many writers, for example, find it useful to write the introduction and the conclusion of a document last.

## Drafting a Technical Document ##


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