Improve your Writing Style for the Rest of your Career with this Self-Study, Technical Writing Course

The Art of Technical Writing – in Plain English

You and your team can learn all the essentials of writing Good Technical Documentation in this comprehensive, Professional Technical Writing Course. I have retired now, so it’s FREE.

Some Instruction Manuals are just hard work, aren’t they? Sometimes you read something 3 times, but you’re still not sure if you’ve got it right. Or something doesn’t make sense? Or did they leave something out? Or it doesn’t work…

Good writing style helps people to understand something.  You can learn the best of my research, best tips and best practices gathered during 17 years as a professional and very technical author, running my own successful business, Authorgraphic Ltd.

Free Professional Tech Author Training Course
See details below. The download link is further down the page.

Think a moment: Do your Customers understand your documentation quickly and easily? Or do they phone your Help Desk instead?

The Good News is, you can learn a better way to write Good Documentation. All it takes is a day or two to study this Course. Learn the best way to write Professional, User-Friendly Technical Documentation, improve your company image, improve sales and reduce your support costs.

I ran these one-day Technical Writing Courses for more than 12 years… I trained several hundred people across the UK and Europe, and as far away as USA and India (11 countries) and it was well received. Now that I have retired, I’m making this course available as a self‑contained, 150-page Manual – FOR FREE.

Good Manuals / Documentation help to Sell your Products

This course will suit anyone, in any industry, who writes:

      • User Manuals
      • Installation & Setup Guides
      • Training Courses & Workbooks
      • Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
      • Work Instructions
      • Business Procedures
      • On-screen Help Guides
      • Safety Manuals, and so on.

You and your team can learn best tips and techniques with this self-study course.

Price: Nil. Zero. It’s FREE.  In the past, individuals paid me £395 for a day’s one-on-one training at my Gloucester office. Some companies paid over £2,000 for training 12 people in a one-day course on site. I ran this course in 11 countries: here in the UK, across Europe, and as far away as India and the USA. I trained several hundred people, and it was well received everywhere.
Now that I have retired, you can have this complete course for Free. No catches.

What’s in the Course?

MODULE 1: How to Write

      • About good and bad writing styles
      • Writing technical subjects in Plain English
      • How to target the reader group(s)
      • Essential grammar – a short refresher
      • How to explain things clearly
      • How to simplify complicated procedures
      • How to handle jargon and acronyms
      • How to use punctuation correctly
      • Accuracy of meaning
      • Appearance and layout: make it Look Good
      • Correct use of images
      • Writing for people whose first language isn’t English
      • Researching your subject matter
      • plus Practical written exercises to help you learn and remember.

MODULE 2: Planning and Structure

One difficulty when you write new documentation is knowing Where to Start, What to Include and What to Exclude. In this module, you learn:

      • How to plan what to write in minutes rather than hours (or days);
      • How to structure the document;
      • How to include the relevant, eliminate the irrelevant;
      • How to save considerable time and stress.

There are practical exercises to help reinforce what you learn.

MODULE 3: Working Smart in MS Word

A short module on Power Tips for Word:

      • Getting the best out of MS Word
      • Essential settings for the Technical Writer
      • Power tips for faster working
      • Use hidden tools in Word to help your writing style
      • Creating an automatic “Index-at-the-back” (Macro included)
      • Cross-references
      • Top ‘keyboard shortcuts’ for the technical writer.

LEARN by –

      • Understanding
      • Reading in Plain English
      • Seeing examples
      • Practical exercises.

I hope you enjoy this course.

Philip Tory, BSc (Hons), Dip.M.

Consultant Technical Author and International Trainer, retired.
Gloucester, UK

My training history:

Since 2004, I have trained several hundred people across 11 countries. In my work as a Technical Author, I continually researched the subject carefully across English-speaking countries, and updated the course as needed. See more about Philip Tory.

Now that I have retired, I still want to pass on the best of my skills. This manual – plus the extra resources on this site – can even help you to run your own training courses. It’s Free.

Download the complete Training Manual PDF

>> Click here to download <<

Tip: I do recommend that, if you want the best out of this course, you print the whole manual, double-sided, and get it spiral-bound. Then you can (1) read through it, page by page, highlight the important bits, write on it, make notes in the margin, and (2) work through the two-page exercises with both pages in view. This really helps people.

Excellence:  The Manual is 150 pages of A4, and it condenses the best of over 20 years of professional  writing and training experience. It will help you to improve your documentation at work, and change the way you and your team write for the rest of your careers. It even has a detailed Index-at-the-back, to help you find things.

Click to see >> Other Resources<<

My Customer Base: Since 1996, I authored Technical Manuals and Help Guides for some of the finest companies in the world, from small entrepreneurs to global corporates: across the UK, Europe, and as far away as Australia. See my Customer list…

Help me, Help others . . . If you can, could you provide a link to this page from your web site or media pages? Or promote it on social media? Let’s spread the good news, and help lots more people to benefit. Thank you. 

Who is this Learning Resource aimed at?

Who would benefit from this Training?

This Technical Authoring Course is for ANYONE who writes Technical or Business Instructions of any kind … such as Engineers, Programmers, Trainers, IT Departments, Managers, Technical Authors, Business Analysts, Administrators, Safety Teams, Product Managers, Support Teams, Project Teams, etc.

Key benefits of learning from Philip Tory

Plain English

This is a major feature of what technical writers need to learn. The aim is for your target users to read something once, understand it, and carry out the tasks without mistakes, accidents or support calls.
And the Course Manual itself is, of course, written in Plain English.

What you will learn by studying this Training Workbook

What you will learn:

  • Writing techniques that help the end readers to understand ‘technical talk’ quicker and more easily.
  • Best practices for writing in clear, user-friendly English.
  • Some essential, basic Grammar.
  • How to target the reader/user groups… How to write at their level, without being patronising.
  • Powerful techniques to plan the content in minutes rather than hours (or days!)
  • Advice on correct layout.
  • How to work faster for the same effort.
  • How to create an “Index at the back”, quickly and easily. And lots more.

Action:   Click here to see the Course Outline.

Improve your documentation skills for the rest of your life

Improve your Authoring Style for the Rest of your Life!

Testimonials

“This course is really going to save me precious time. I would recommend it to anyone who has to write and maintain any type of document.” – Kyla Young, Operations Manager, Dataflow Communications.

“The course was useful and informative. Good pace and delivered at a level understandable to the delegates. The most interesting part was the Plain English module, because it’s been a long time since I was at school and I had slipped into bad habits.” – Glen Norman, PTW & Training Coordinator, LES Engineering, Humberside.

“Very interesting. The content was excellent and meaningful to my job. I learnt a great deal – many things I didn’t know before. I would recommend this course to others.” – Mandy Raison,  Learning & Development Manager, Airborne Systems, Bridgend.

“The section on planning was the most interesting as this is something that is immediately relevant. Overall, a very good course. It presented a number of techniques that I can use immediately with no extra tools.” – A. Hall, Head of Development Methods Group, Bank of England, London.

“I did actually use the techniques soon after, to produce a report that led to a request for expenditure approaching 8 figures, which has been well received, so thank you.”  – Richard Carver, Offshore Operations Engineer, Perenco, Norfolk.

>> see more Testimonials from Customers here

“I learned a good understanding of the role of a technical author, and what I need to plan and consider. The training day was well-presented and kept my interest throughout. Questions were well answered and discussed. The course manual provides good post-course resource. It will be a good point of reference when I require tips and advice. It was an excellent course.” – Brian Livingstone, BAE Instrument Landing Systems, Telford.

“The course was well planned with effective communication and presentation. I learned how to minimise my writing style and offer more informative, easy to understand guides. Overall, a very good investment of my time.” – Graham Carter, Telecommunications Dept., University of Bedfordshire.

“The training course was very interesting and showed me some basic errors that I currently do without thinking. I learned a lot of details about making documents simpler and more user-friendly. Excellent information.” – Andrew Thalayasignham, Production Engineer, Airborne Systems, Bridgend.

“Very interesting and enjoyable training course. It made me think twice about how my writing comes over to others. I’m sure it will help me to get my message across in a simpler and clearer way in future. Definitely worthwhile.” – Alexander Findlow, Snr Telecoms Engineer, Perenco, Great Yarmouth, UK.

Tech Writing Training held at Quintiles Pharmaceuticals in India
I ran this Technical Writing Course for a Pharmaceuticals company in Mumbai, India.

This Technical Writing Course is for any Business or Industry. You will learn from materials prepared by a writing expert and international trainer.

TWC Glos

Philip Tory,  BSc(Hons), Dip.M.
Expert Technical Writer and International Trainer. (TWC Glos)

If you would like further information, please contact me — Philip Tory

Example technical documentation

User Manual - Industrial Burner Controller
A User Manual that I wrote for a high-efficiency, Industrial Burner Controller.