A guide to Writing Technical Instructions by Jonathen Peck

Writing Technical Instructions is basically trying to teach someone how to do something that they don't know much about. It is usually very challenging due to all of the things you have to consider. These thoughts that need to be considered when starting this process are who is your audience, what is your purpose, context, how lengthy they will be, and how complex these instructions are going to be. Technical writing is a profession in its own. You may think these specialists usually write their own but most of them actually only review the documents technical writers design to make sure things are correct

A good way to go about starting this process is to ask yourself a few simple questions.

1. Who will be the audience for your instructions? Why are these readers the best audience?
2. How will you have to tailor your instructions for this audience?
3. How long will your instructions be? How many different parts will you have to explain for your audience?
4. Will you need to include pictures or diagrams in your instructions? How many pictures will you need? What will those look like? Why are these important?
5. How might your finished instructions look? Will they be 1-page long or more? Will it look like a book or a pamphlet? How else might it look?

A great rubric that shows how well your documents are put together and how clear they are can be found here. http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson1101/SampleRubric.pdf. This rubric is based off of how well you define your audience, purpose, visual design, and how complete your work is.

Personally I don't think I have ever written instructions for an audience but going through school and work your experience this more than you realize. There is basically a list of instructions for almost everything you can learn.

Sources:
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1101
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson1101/SampleRubric.pdf
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson1101/PlanningSheet.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writer