Post #1- Technical Writing Defined

In order for me to define "technical writing," my definitions of each term should be defined.

I interpret anything that can be described as "technical" to be more in-tune with the small parts of the idea. It is more methodical, with either the "right" way or the "wrong" way. It isn't involved in much interpretation. In my head, the concept of a "yes or no question" is the same general concept of anything involved in "technical" terms; very basic and to-the-point.

I am very fond of writing, and find myself doing it VERY often, but to define the word is a little difficult for me. Literally, "writing" as a verb would be defined as “to write” (obviously), but I was told never to use the word you're defining in the definition. More generally, "writing" (and again, this is my own personal definition) is an expression, or way of expression. It’s a way of portraying ideas, facts, beliefs, anything up to food recipes, so that your thoughts are apparent to other people. Writing is talking without voice. Unlike my concept of the term "technical", the term "writing" is very much dependent on interpretation. Some writing, such as facts or instructions, can't have much interpretation, but literature is completely dependent on how you comprehend what you've read. If I wrote "one must be empty in order to feel full", one could comprehend what I said as 'I have to go without everything in order to understand what truly fulfills me' or more literally 'If I go without eating until I'm starved, then I will understand the true feeling of "fullness" when I eat again.' Obviously these are two completely different ideas, which is why writing is very involved with interpretation.

Hopefully, I will make it into Medical School upon graduating from Clemson University, so my "profession" of choice is a doctor/surgeon and my field in Biological Sciences. In this field, I think that technical writing is an extremely necessary and important part. It is the reports you have to write up on research projects, patients with all tests included, results, diagnoses, description of surgery (if surgery performed), insurance paperwork, etc. Every time I’ve been to the doctor, there has been a write up of a summary of my visit. Therefore, technical writing in my field of study (pre-medicine/biological sciences) is mostly defined as lab reports; whether it’s the report on a research project, or a report on a patient. There are facts (data of research findings, results of various medical tests, etc.) and there are interpretations (final diagnosis of patient, causes of sickness, interpretations of research data, ideas for future experiments to better resolve the research question, etc.). In other words, there is the “technical” parts, and the “writing” parts.