Technical Manual Lesson Plans For 4th Grade
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Technical Instructions Franny is facing a big challenge. She's been hired to write the instructional manual for a bottle warmer that uses a computer interface to heat up the bottles to the proper temperature for babies. Mothers and fathers can control the bottle warmer from their phones, computers or from the touchscreen on the bottle warmer itself. But Franny is worried. She's never written an instructional manual for something so high tech before. What should she write?
And how should the instructions be formatted? Technical instructions offer guidance to users on a specific technology product. In other words, they are just what they sound like: they are instructions for technology products. To help Franny compose her technical instruction manual, let's take a look at the purpose of technical instructions and how their content and structure work together. Purpose Franny needs to write the technical instructions for the new high-tech bottle warmer. But she's not sure where to start or what to do first.
The first thing that a writer must do when writing anything is to identify the purpose of the piece, or the reason for the piece. For Franny, her purpose might be that she needs to pay her bills and she's being paid to write the instructions, but that's not the kind of purpose that she needs to identify before writing. Instead, she needs to understand why the instructions are necessary. Technical instructions are about problem-solving. They are a way to show people how to use a technical product, and they are also about highlighting possible problems that the user might encounter and how to deal with them.
For example, the bottle warmer has a 'quick heat' feature where a parent can press a button that causes the bottle to heat up faster than normal, in just a few seconds. But if the user presses that button before telling the bottle warmer the size of the bottle in the warmer, the product will short out and will not heat at all until it is reset. This can be a problem!
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In her instructions, Franny will want to make clear that the user must input the size of the bottle first and then press the quick heat button. She should also include instructions for how to reset the bottle warmer if it shorts out due to pressing the button first. Content & Structure Franny understands that she needs to focus her writing around problem-solving for the users of the bottle warmer.
But what, exactly, does that mean? What information should she include in the technical instructions and how should she arrange that information? In technical manuals, content and structure work together to make both the instructions and the product easy to use. Most technical manuals start with a title page and table of contents to orient the reader as to what they are reading and how it is organized. After the table of contents, many technical manuals offer safety warnings and user's guide to the main functions of the product. For example, Franny will want to include brief instructions on how to use the bottle warmer in the user's guide section.
In addition, she'll want to include safety warnings, like the fact that if the bottle is heated more than once, it can burn the baby or a reminder that the prongs should only be plugged into a safe, grounded plug. Otherwise, it can cause problems, including house fires. The user's guide and safety warnings are the heart of the technical instructions. They are where most users will go first and offer a place for users to start. If a parent only reads that section in Franny's instructions, they will know exactly how to use the bottle warmer and will likely not need to know anything more. But sometimes, users will experience problems.
Remember how if users press the quick heat button before telling the warmer what size the bottle is the machine shorts out? This is an example of an issue that users might experience. Problems like this are why, after the user's guide and warnings, Franny will want to include a troubleshooting section that covers common issues. After the troubleshooting section, she'll also want to include frequently asked questions, or FAQ for short.
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Because the product she's writing about is a new product, the FAQ might come from beta users or might be questions that Franny or the company anticipates people will ask. If she was writing the manual for a product that had been around for a while, then she'd be able to gather the actual questions that users had over the years. Finally, Franny's technical instructions will end with a section dedicated to further help and contact information. In this section, Franny will outline how to get in contact with the company if the user has additional issues or questions. Remember that the purpose of technical instructions is to solve problems for the user. Notice how every section of the manual, from the table of contents to contact information, is centered on this purpose.
Franny's mission as a writer is to try to head off any possible problems so that the users of the bottle warmer will have the best, most issue-free experience possible. Lesson Summary Technical instructions are written communication meant to offer guidance to users of a specific technology product. Their main purpose is to solve problems and to head off any issues that users might experience when using the product. Technical instructions include title page and table of contents, user's guide and safety warnings, troubleshooting section, frequently asked questions (or FAQ for short) and a section dedicated further help and contact information.