Objectivity in Technical Writing – Why It’s Important

<p>&lbrack;ad&lowbar;1&rsqb;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What is objectivity&quest; How to keep technical writing objective&quest; How to maintain the objectivity&quest; These are some of the questions&comma; we will find answers to&period; Objectivity in writing means that the author or writer explains or discusses on a topic without subjectivity&period; It is an unbiased mental attitude&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Subjectivity in writing refers to the text that contains writer&&num;8217&semi;s personal opinion&comma; use of I&comma; We&comma; and their feelings&period; Therefore&comma; it can be said that objectivity is to keep subjectivity away from the writing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Example of objectivity is &&num;8220&semi;SnagIt is an effective and useful screen capturing tool&&num;8221&semi;&period; If this sentence was to be written in a subjective format&comma; it would be something like this&semi; &&num;8220&semi;I find SnagIt a very useful tool for screen capturing&&num;8221&semi;&period; According to many experts like Ugur Akinci&comma; Ph&period;D&period; &&num;8220&semi;very&&num;8221&semi; kills the objectivity of a sentence and that it can be much better without this word&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><b>Importance of Objectivity in Technical Writing<&sol;b><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Technical Writing is about explaining or describing an objective fact&comma; information&comma; or procedure&period; It does not deal with human emotions&comma; sentiments&comma; or expressions&semi; it would be likely to say that technical writing is objective&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There are three categories in technical writing&comma; User Documentation&comma; Software Documentation&comma; and Technology Marketing Documentation&period; These categories involve products&comma; applications&comma; software&comma; and machines and writers&comma; specifically technical writers cannot pronounce their personal experiences and emotions for them&period; The writers have to be impersonal and objective in order to convey the product effectively&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For example&comma; I have an IP phone set to describe its features and procedures&semi; I should rather use an instructional voice for the users than telling them how I use it&period; Users want to see what is the &&num;8216&semi;action&&num;8217&semi; and not the &&num;8216&semi;actor&&num;8217&semi; because the position where they stand&comma; they are actors themselves&period; They do not need to see a competitor sitting next to them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Users&&num;8217&semi; interest in the documents is the motive behind technical writing&comma; which fairly and impartially should be objective and clear&period; The more objective is a technical document&comma; the more it is easy to follow the words&period; Objectivity also changes with the level of users&comma; i&period;e&period; layman&comma; experienced&comma; and technical along with the three categories of technical writing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><b>Prominent Features of Objectivity<&sol;b><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The following features can help you maintain objectivity in the documents&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ol>&NewLine;<li>Objectivity results in no jargon and useless words<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Objectivity allows to differentiate between the words used in technical document&comma; end-user&comma; and marketing documents<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>It shows the product upfront&comma; instead of the writer<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Objectivity comes with Passive Voice<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Active Voice is used barely<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ol>&NewLine;<p>&lbrack;ad&lowbar;2&rsqb;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;