Complete an Idea Matrix Before you Draft
Once you have your purpose, audience, information/sources, extracted and sorted main points, and order in which to present those main points, you can draft the technical document. As you can see, drafting a document occurs as a planned process; technical writers rarely, if ever, just sit down and write. As part of the process, understand that your first writing is always a draft. Even for communications created under time constraints, you need to leave a little time between drafting and finalizing/submitting the document. Ideally, you can get feedback from others to help you finalize a draft. If you cannot or do not have time to get others’ feedback, at least set the document aside for a short time so that you can come back to it with an editorial as opposed to a creator’s eye.
As an important precursor to the actual draft, create a layout of main points with their accompanying content and source information first—this will greatly help you draft. In fact, the draft will almost write itself if once you complete this step. This is called an idea matrix, and it can be set up in this way:
Here’s a copy of the Idea Matrix for a Technical Document to download and use. And below is an idea matrix based on the ongoing sample in this section of the text.
sample idea matrix – precursor to a draft
Remember the ongoing sample situation:
Your manager tasks you to provide a briefing about a European Court of Justice ruling to search engine optimization specialists who work in the field with clients. Your manager suspects that clients of the firm will ask about the ruling and she wants consultants to be able to answer clients’ questions with confidence based on the latest information.
Please note that some cells are not filled in. A common point need not be shared by every source in a sample.
| Sources | Common Points | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | Process of De-listing | Who Can De-list | |
| Nieva, R. (2014, November 26). EU wants “right to be forgotten” applied globally. Retrieved from http://www.cnet.com/news/eu-wants-right-to-be-forgotten-applied-globally/ | Richard Nieva in an Cnet.com blog post titled “EU Wants ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Applied Globally” that EU privacy regulators want their “ruling applied worldwide,” which means applying the ruling not just to local domains like “google.fr in France or google.de in Germany,” which Google would prefer, but to Google.com as well (Nieva, 2014). | “In May the European Union decided people could request that their names be excluded from search results in Europe, if the results were deemed outdated or irrelevant,” writes Richard Nieva in a Cnet.com blog post titled “EU Wants ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Applied Globally’ (Nieva, 2014). | |
| Lomas, N. (2014, November 28). “Right to be forgotten” guidelines published by European regulators. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/28/rtbf-29wp-guidelines/ | “Earlier this week the 29WP said it wanted the search de-listing ruling to extend to cover results on .com domains, not just European sub-domains,” reports Natasha Lomas in a Techcrunch.com blog post titled “‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Guidelines Published By European Regulators” (Lomas, 2014). | The ruling “creates a process” for people to remove links to unwanted content from Google’s search results, writes Mark Scott in a New York Times article titled ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Should Apply Worldwide, E.U. Panel Says” (Scott, 2014). The process itself is unspecified—who adjudicates among requests to be de-listed?—who can appeal and on what grounds?—though Nieva reports that 170,000 requests have been so far (Nieva, 2014). | The guidelines themselves state that “the interest of the public will be significantly greater if the data subject plays a role in public life,” this as quoted by Natasha Lomas in a Techcrunch.com blog post titled “‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Guidelines Published By European Regulators”(Lomas, 2014). So presumably public figures would be exempt from the privacy protections of the ruling. |
| Scott, M. (2014, November 26). “Right to be forgotten” should apply worldwide, E.U. panel says. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/technology/right-to-be-forgotten-should-be-extended-beyond-europe-eu-panel-says.html | Mark Scott writing for The New York Times in an article titled “‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Should Apply Worldwide, E.U. Panel Says” states that the just-issued guidelines as they stand are not binding, which means that it will “be up to E.U. member countries to decide how to apply them—or if they want to apply them at all” (Scott, 2014). Whether the ruling could be enforced beyond the E.U., and whether American content providers would comply, remains an open question. | ||
| Lovejoy, B. (2014, December 1). European Court of Justice publishes “right to be forgotten” guidelines – and they are vague. Retrieved from http://9to5google.com/2014/12/01/european-court-of-justice-publishes-right-to-be-forgotten-guidelines-and-they-are-vague/ | Ben Lovejoy writing for the Google blog “9 to 5” writes that individuals in Europe under the ruling can request to have links deleted that are “inaccurate, outdated, or irrelevant”(Lovejoy, 2014). The request process itself is unspecified—who adjudicates among requests to be de-listed?—who can appeal and on what grounds?—though Nieva reports that 170,000 requests have been received so far (Nieva, 2014). | Public figures—or those for whom “the interest of the public overrides the rights of the data subject”—are an exception: their requests for de-listing may be denied, reports Ben Lovejoy writing for the Google blog “9 to 5” (Lovejoy, 2014). But, continues Lovejoy, the guidelines admit that it cannot be “establish[ed] with certainty” who should be considered a public figure, and even public figures are entitled to some degree of privacy, hence every request whether by a private individual or a “public figure” becomes a matter of bureaucratic discretion over claims that cannot be ruled on in advance (Lovejoy, 2014). | |
Create a Title for the Draft
Review your idea matrix in order to create a title that forecasts your entire briefing. Since your brief consists of three common points, you might use those points in your title. And you want your title to tell your audience precisely why this information is important and how to use it up front.
Here’s one example of a title that forecasts everything; if this is too lengthy, you could simply use the first part of the title before the colon.
What you need to know if your clients ask about the “right to be forgotten” regulations issued by the E.U. Court of Justice with respect to Google.com: Where does the ruling apply? What is the process to de-list yourself? And who can de-list themselves?
Draft the Document
Once you have completed all steps in this process, your drafting task becomes relatively easy, because the steps walk you through the thinking that underlies the writing. The substance of the document will basically be written, and the organization should be clear. Now, all you need to do is to decide what content you want to add to the source information, if anything, depending on your purpose and audience. Then compose section headers, topic sentences, and concluding sentences. Voila! You have a draft.
