4 Low-Tech Documentation Tips for Non-Writers*

Is writing on your task list this week? A letter to a client maybe? A report on a study your team just completed? Or what about an update to your project plan?

If there’s a technical writer on your team, your practice might already involve passing it along to them first. (I use this term generally--of course a tech writer writes, but they can also be skillful proofreaders and editors.)

I’m often the only writer on my team and am asked frequently to polish presentations, instructions, and marketing collateral prior to a deadline. My edits involve anything from reordering steps to making sure subjects and verbs agree to correcting the spelling of the boss’s name. Whether it is part of my official job role or not, this type of editing is a welcome opportunity to help out a teammate—and to evangelize for the serial comma.

Editing ourselves, though, is hard and a second set of eyes is always best. But not everyone has the luxury of working with a writer or editor. No worries. I’ve compiled a list of specific actions you can take to improve the accuracy and quality of anything you write.

1. Go through the Motions 

If you’re writing instructions or you're documenting a process, test it out. Read and then perform each step exactly as written.

• 
  Do the words match the actions required to actually complete the steps?
• Did you reach the intended outcome?
• Is a step missing?
• Are buttons/fields/keys named correctly?
• Should Step 5 actually come before Step 3?

Yes, depending on the audience’s prior knowledge of the topic, they can fill in some of the gaps in detail. Remember: if you can’t follow your steps exactly as written, your reader can’t either.

If I could shout this one from the rooftops I would. So many documentation errors could be prevented if we simply tested out our documents first. Don’t take a programmer’s word for it—don’t even take your own word for it. Test, edit, repeat.

2. Read It Out Loud 

This one might sound basic or childish, but you can’t argue with the results. When we’re in a hurry and ready to be finished, we often miss errors on the page. Our brains fill in what our eyes might not actually see. (Because we KNOW what we’re trying to SAY, right?) But if you slow down to read your text aloud, you’re more likely to find those errors. If a piece of text doesn’t sound “right,” it’s probably not.

This method helps identify not only basic errors (typos, missing words, etc.) but it also areas for improvement in sentence structure.

• Did you use the same word four times in the last three sentences? (I’m looking at you, “very” and “really.”)
• Is your tone too casual or is it too staid?
• Is your opening paragraph one long sentence?
• Isthepacechoppy or are…you…droning…on…and…on?
• What about jargon? Will your readers understand the buzzwords?

Close your office/guest room/laundry room door and belt it out; you might be surprised at what you hear.

3. Punctuation Matters

Although punctuation seems to have almost disappeared from social media posts and texts, it is critical to a reader's understanding. You’ve all seen some version of this one:

I told you punctuation is important; that comma just saved Grandma’s life.

I won’t try to give you a punctuation lesson—I have a love/hate relationship with commas, for example, and I find myself constantly looking up correct usage. What I will share with you is one rule that is easy to remember and even easier to apply. Here goes:

Unless you’re writing for a British audience, periods and commas always go inside closing quotation marks.

That’s it. Apply this simple rule to look like a pro.

4. Use Spell Check (but Don’t Live and Die by It)

Spell check is a useful tool, but it’s just that—a tool. It will identify words that aren’t words, but it will not flag mistyped words that are words: it’s vs. its, read vs. reed, through vs. threw—you get the point.

Someone once handed me a final document with an unfortunate misuse of “vice versa.”

Spell check wouldn’t have caught that. (Reading aloud would have, I bet.)

Treat spell check as one last review before finalizing the document. Think of it as a squirt of hand sanitizer after you wash your hands. It might not make a huge difference, but it doesn’t hurt.

What are the low-tech wins here? No sentence diagrams, no memorizing parts of speech, and no rules (okay, one). The result? Accurate, understandable, and usable documents.

I’d love to hear what you do to make sure your documentation is good documentation. Or if you try any of these tips, let me know how they worked for you. 

Thanks for reading. See you soon.

*We’re all writers. Everyone posts to social media, jots thank-you notes (I hope), and writes emails or texts. I use “non-writers” because the term is way more catchy than “those without professional and/or official writerly responsibilities.”