Technical Writing Practice Exam

Technical Writing Practice Exam Questions

Technical writing is essential for candidates working in the computer industry, engineers and scientists explaining their findings, and anyone looking for full-time writing jobs. Understanding technical material and recording it in a document is not all that technical writing entails. High-level information is processed into digestible text for a specific audience via technical writing.

Skills Required

Technical writing requires more than just comprehending technical material and recording it in a paper. Technical writing transforms high-level information into easily accessible text for a specific audience.

This Technical Writer exam evaluates a candidate's ability to document scientific and technical events, goods, and services in accordance with the needs of the firm. It assesses the applicants' ability to write sentences, paragraphs, sections, lists, images, proposals, lab reports, research proposals, e-mail, typography, and punctuation in a variety of formats.

Who should take the exam?

Candidates looking to work in technical writing departments of various firms, students trying to develop their skillset and strengthen their CV, and current employees looking for a higher role can use this certification to demonstrate the worth of their skills to their employers.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Using technology, such as online pages, assistance files, or social networking sites, to communicate.
• Providing directions on how to perform anything, regardless of how complex the activity is or whether the communication is created or distributed via technology.”

Career Opportunities

Technical Writer can work in sectors including Financial services, manufacturing, energy, consulting, medical business, and engineering are just a few of the vocations that require great technical writing.

Course Outline

The Technical writing certification covers the following topics:

Planning to Write

● The Quest

● Technical Writing Theorems

● Technical Writing Can Be Creative

● The Value of Technical Communication to You

● Comparing Technical Writing to Engineering and Science

Audience

● General Considerations

● Experience and Expertise

● Breadth of Audience

● Native Language

● Audience Motivation

● Medium and the Message

● Becoming the Audience

Documentation Plans

● Document Specifications (Doc Specs)

● Doc Specs: Sample

● Documentation Project Plans

Writing: General Principles

● Words

● Consistency

● Verbs

● Adjectives

● Adverb

● Nouns

● Pronouns: He, She, and They

● Pronouns: You

● Pronouns: It and They

● Fluffy Phrases

● Commonly Confused Words

Sentences

● Active Voice and Passive Voice

● Active Voice Is Better

● When Is Passive Voice Okay?

● Short= Sweet

● Causes of Long Sentences

● One Sentence = One Thought

● Parenthetical Clauses

Paragraphs and Sections

● Sentence Transitions

● Section transitions

● Paragraph Length

● Paragraph Transitions

● Sections

● Summary of Paragraphs and Sections

Lists

● Introduction to Lists

● In-Sentence Lists

● Bulleted List

● Elements in Bulleted Lists

● The Length of Each Element

● Numbered Lists Directions

● Directions

● Parallel Lists

Tables

● Principles of using Tables:

● Column & Row Headers

● Units of Measure

● Arrangement of Columns and Rows

● Parallelism in Tables

● Amounts of Text in Cells

● Rules

● Coloring

● Shading

● Captions

Graphics

● Time Series

● Extra Detail in Online Graphics

● Before and After

● Callouts versus Embedded Text

● Graphics That Orient Readers

● Screenshots

● Color Blindnes

● Block Diagrams

● Text That Supplements Figures

● Technical Photography

● Line Art Enhances Technical Photographs

● Big Picture First, Then Details

● Layout: Controlling Focus

● Layout: Keeping Eyes on the Page

● Layout: White Space

Professional Secrets

● Explanations of Formula- Based Rules

● Examples

● Examples By Metaphor

● Examples for Programming Documentation

● Questions-and-Answer Format Example

● In Other Words

● Tone

● Pace

● Footnotes and Other Digressions

● Beyond the Obvious

● Precision Descriptions

● The Hardest Part of Writing

Writing: Specific Kinds of Documents

Manuals

● Manual Style: Cookbooks

● Cookbook Example: Installing the Carambola Server

● Manual Style: Tutorials

● Tutorial Example: Getting Started with HTML

● Manual Style Guides

● Guide Example: Creating HTML Headers

● Manual Style: Reference Manuals

● Reference Example: The Pr1me Utility

● Manual Style: Nonverbal Manuals

● Online Help: Overview

● Online Help Examples

● Release Notes

● Release Note Example: Carabola Web Server Version 3.7

Web Sites

● Plans

● Home Page: Specify Purpose and Audience

● Home Pages: Engage the Reader’s Imagination

● Home Pages: Set the Tone

● Page Templates

● Navigators and Search Boxes

● Hyperlinks in Body Text

● Secondary Pages

● Text in Web Sites

● PDF versus HTML

Proposals

● The Proposal before the Proposal

● Adherence to the Proposal Template

● Proposal Element

● Proposal Element: Cover Letters

● Proposal Element: Abstracts

● Proposal Element: Contingency Plans

● Types of Proposals

● Proposals for Revolutionary Ideas

● Research Proposals

● Research Proposals: Significance Statements

● Research Proposals: Objectives and Hypotheses

● Research Proposal: Design and Methods

● Book Proposals

● Book Proposal: Example Marking Section

● Business Plans

Internal Planning Documents

● Business Proposals

● Business Proposal: Example

● High-Level Technical Specs

● High-Level Technical Spec Example

Lab Reports

● Title Page

● Abstract

● Introduction

● Materials

● Experimental Procedure

● Results

PowerPoint Presentations

● Organizing a Presentation: The Big Picture

● The Number of Slides

● The Opening Moments of a Presentation

● Introductory Slides: The Traditional Approach

● Mechanics: Fonts and Backgrounds

● Audience: The Theory of Relativity

● Graphics

● The Complicity of a Graphic

● Different Kinds of Learners

● PowerPoint Speech: Overcoming Fear

E-Mail

● The Essence of the E-Mail Problem

● Guidelines for writing E-mails

● Before Hitting the Send Button

● After the First Miscommunication

Editing and Producing Documents

● Editing: What Is It Really?

● Technical Editing Peer’s Work

● Copyediting a Colleague’s Document

● Media for Technical Editing

● Technical Editor’s Role and Responsibilities

● Bug-Tracking Systems

Fonts and Typography

● Font

● Serif and Sans- Serif Fonts

● Serif and Sans-Serif in Soft Copy

● Consistency and Convention

● True- Type versus Post Script Fonts

Punctuation

● Commas

● Colons

● Semicolons (;)

● Dashes and Hyphens

● Hyphens

● Periods

● Quotation Marks (“”)

● Apostrophe (‘’)