Technical Writing, Code of Good Practice

1- Do not burden readers with information they do not need - they have more than enough difficulties in handling the information they do need.

2- It is the reader's need for information that shall be fulfilled - not the communicator's store of information that shall be emptied.

3- The communicator shall be able to choose freely the means of expression that are the most effective with regard to the reader and the defined goals.

4- The medium is not the message. [I have designed the book, now I shall write it]

5- The communicator is responsible for the intended reader's understanding of the technical message.
An information problem can often be solved in many ways - seldom is only one solution right and all the others wrong.

6- The communicator must not surrender to irrelevant, subjective demands for changes of information.

7- The communicator should make changes in information products only when the alterations increase the effectiveness of the information.

8- It is not unclever to express oneself in a simple way.

9- The communicator must be aware of the legal and moral aspects of his or her communications.

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