Professional writing is a clear, concise method of communicating with fellow employees in the workplace, and can be done by electronics or by paper.  This type of writing is designed to get the reader to use and to react to the information.  Professional writing or technical writing is different than other types of writing.  Technical writing differs from paper writing in the way it is structured and in the way it is read.  Both writing styles have benefits over the other, but the best style depends on the type of information and the intended audience.

    The most important part of all technical writing is to clearly define the audience.  This is also true for all types of writing.   Before writing a technical document you must gain all necessary information about the audience.  Such information should consist of the audience characteristics, technical background, cultural background, and knowledge of the subject.  Then decide the purpose of the document.  How in-depth does the document need to take the reader?  To help with these decisions a questionnaire needs to be developed to determine the intended audience and use of the document.  The questionnaire can also be helpful in determining the level of technicality you need to use.  Highly technical, semi-technical, or non-technical can be used depending on the message and the audience.

    Another important feature to any document is the level of writing you need to use.  The level of writing also depends on the audience and their knowledge of the subject matter.  Writing a technical document may have terms that need to be defined for some audiences.  Definitions are very important when using any writing style.  It is important to define any term that the reader may not be familiar with or may not know the terms intended use.  This refers back to the technicality of the document.  The audience you are writing for can change the writing level of the definition from a simple parenthetical definition to an in-depth expanded definition.  The expanded definition, combines both parenthetical and sentence definitions in a separate, more detailed excerpt.

    Writing for the web is different than writing for print.  When writing for the web you are generally writing for a much broader audience.  The web can be interactive where as hard copies can only be read.  The web is more appealing to the reader because they get to navigate their way through the document.  The web document is able to take a paper document and expand it to great lengths by adding links to different sites with research of the topic or expanded definitions.  Providing an expanded definition link is helpful for those who may not understand and need a better understanding of a term of phrase and ignored by those who do understand and want to continue reading the document.  In a paper document, all the information has to be on the same level.  All readers have to reader the same information regardless of their previous knowledge.

    The web has one benefit that the printed document cannot share.  That is that the web is always changing.  A site can be visited one day and the next it can have new information or just a new structure.  This is done to keep the readers interested in the information.  By using the web, the writer can create and recreate its own image on a daily basis if they so choose.

    Reading from the web is also much different than writing for print.  The structure of the document is most important.  The web page should be designed to guide the user through the document.  Important information should be highlighted and the scrolling should be kept to a minimum.  Printed documents are generally not easily scan-able and the reader cannot control the outcome of their reading.

    Technical writing has more benefits over paper writing in the professional world.  Technical writing offers faster, concise information that helps the user sift through the important information and discard the rest.  Electronic information is designed so that the reader can get the information they want quickly through concise, easily scanned pages.  The structure is designed on short sentences and paragraphs with important headings highlighted.  This allows the reader to avoid the wordy, exaggerated information and get straight to the facts.