Technical Writing

The following characteristics shapes the writing process to fit the desired outcome. Communicating your ideas, needs, and wants in writing is essential in all forms of writing styles. Although there is exceeding important values in composing literature in the form of short stories and technical documents, there are also distinctions which allow each of the writing styles to stand on its own.
The arrangement of events and action in a short story is displayed in the plot. The plot is the literary element that describes the structure; it begins with the exposition, followed by rising action, climax, and then the falling action and last to the resolution. In the same way technical documents such as lab reports, instructions, diagrams, and many other forms of professional writings, need to display a since of organizational format. For example, a document on how to perform a specific task will begin with an introduction, background information, followed by sequentially ordered steps and last a conclusion. If any of the above structures are not in order, it will create chaos for the reader and or audience.
The short story is another example that causes chaos, is the story from Ernest Hemingway, titled “Hills Like White Elephants.” In this short story Hemingway creates his style from the Modernist movement. This depicts a disruption in syntax, form and does not give a concise resolution. The story begins with a couple sitting at a train station in the middle of Spain discussing the decision of whether the lady should have an abortion. In the story the word abortion is never directly implied, instead you have to figure this plot for yourself. However, your instructions have to be concise and to the point. If this style of writing is used in a technical document it fails to deliver the information. Therefore, the instructions will not only confuse the reader, but it will make it difficult to follow the given procedure.
To compose an essay or short story dependents heavily on the imagination of the author and the story may be fiction or nonfiction. However, in a technical document which can be used in a court of law, and has ethical value, the document must be all written in nonfiction. There will be a time and place for imagination in a technical documents as in the style and color or the graphs, as well as in the tone.
The rhetoric situation has different styles depending upon the literature.
According to Edward T. Channing, who composed the “Lectures Read to the Seniors at Harvard College,” states that the definition of rhetoric is:
A body of rules derived from experience and observation, extending to all communication by language and designed to make it efficient. It does not ask whether a man is to be a speaker or writer, --a poet, philosopher, or debater; but simply,--is it his wish to be put in the right way of communicating his mind with power to others, by words spoken or written. If so, rhetoric undertakes to show him rules or principles which will help to make the expression of his thoughts effective.
These statements summaries the similarities between composing a short story to technical documents.