Documentation Services

Overview

Documentation comes in many varieties. Good writing skills make up one component of effective communication and documentation, but only one. Choosing an appropriate structure for the documentation is equally important, as is the "packaging," or format of the document. I.e., the way it is presented is often as important as what is presented—if a reader cannot locate critical information readily, or the reader is not drawn in, the message may be completely lost.

There are many methods of preparing (and delivering) documentation and other kinds of "information-based" materials. One group of these methods falls into the structured writing category. Structured writing simply implies that some method of organizing the content has been applied in some systematic way. Some methods are very formal, some less so.

Structured writing and technical documentation

Technical documentation, especially, is best prepared and presented according to a well defined ruleset. Users must be able to quickly locate the information they need and the information must be presented in such a way that the user can easily assimilate the knowledge or take appropriate action.

The e-write approach to developing technical documentation is to first analyze the content, and then create the document using a structured writing method based on research-proven principles and widely recognized as a standard.

Turn to the structured writing page for more ...

Corporate documents

Documents that support the organizational structure of an entity range from Articles of Incorporation (corps) or Organization (LLC's) to By-laws or Operating Agreements and on to daily-use documents like Operations Manuals. Each has a specific purpose and needs to be organized and developed accordingly. There are some examples on the project summaries page.

Communications

All documents communicate—that is a given—but the purpose and target audience may differ considerably. An operations manual is not written in the style of marketing copy, and marketing copy is very different from, say, a direct response sales letter or a press release.

That said, underlying key elements of any writing are the structure (which varies according to purpose) and the way in which written words are used to "get across" the message (which, again, varies considerably according to purpose). Good copy has a cohesive flow that is both distinctive and purpose-directed.

On the project summaries page you can see a variety of structures and writing styles.

Options and pricing

Turn to the documentation pricing page for more ...