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How to Write Instructions

Last Updated: February 18, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Rachel Scoggins, PhD . Rachel Scoggins is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Lander University. Rachel's work has been presented at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association and the Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. She received her PhD in Literary Studies from Georgia State University in 2016. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 154,542 times.

A set of instructions should help a reader accomplish a task quickly, efficiently, and successfully. It's important to provide every detail. Omissions or mistakes may frustrate a reader. Use the following guidelines to help you write a set of instructions.

Preparing To Write Instructions

For example, if you were explaining how to bake a cake to a professional chef, you wouldn't have to explain how to fold in the ingredients, why it's important to bring the eggs to room temperature, or the difference between all-purpose and self-rising flour. If you were explaining this to someone who doesn't know how to cook, these definitions and explanations may make the difference between a good cake and a bad cake.
Err on the side of caution and don't treat the audience as an expert. This ensures your instructions are always clear and able to be followed.

Be careful not to leave something out. If you skip important steps, you make it impossible for the reader to complete the task. Also make sure you don't write the steps out of order.
For example, if you say, "Mix the ingredients with a mixer. Place in the oven at 350 degrees," the reader may think you place the mixing bowl in the oven.

Writing the Instructions

When defining or explaining, use as much descriptive language as possible.
For example, say "Add two eggs" instead of "Two eggs should be added to the cake mix."

Refrain from adding unnecessary information. Unneeded definitions, tips, steps, or information can confuse your readers, making it difficult to follow the instructions.

Give all measurements exactly. If someone needs to cut off 5/8-inch of a board, say that.
For example, if you are baking a cake, don't wait until step 4 to say, "Before mixing the ingredients, sift the flour and bring the eggs to room temperature."

Step 6 Use sequence and time transitions.

Some common transitions are: first, next, then, finally, after, before.

Laying Out the Instructions

State the purpose of the instructions, who should read the instructions, and what situation might need the procedure.
You can talk about what the procedure doesn't do.
You can also provide background information in the intro.
The introduction can mention any warnings or important information that is needed before the reader begins the process. But remember most people will skip the intro, so don't put anything important in the introduction that you don't put somewhere else. [7] X Research source
For example, "These instructions provide information on how to bake a chocolate cake. The first section explains how to combine the wet and dry ingredients, and the second section explains how to bake properly."#Place the steps in sequential order. Instructions need to be in a specific order. The tasks should logically follow one after another. Step 1 has to be completed before you can move on to step 2. Organization is pivotal for writing instructions. [8] X Research source
If it doesn't matter which order something is done in, start with the most important.

Step 2 Organize your steps into prerequisites.

For example, if you are baking a cake, you have to heat the oven, mix the ingredients, and make the frosting before you can complete the cake. [9] X Research source

Step 3 Break the instructions into separate tasks.

For example, if you are working on a car, there are different things you have to do before getting to the engine. You have to place the car on a jack, remove other car parts, or remove covers. Each of these tasks require their own sets of instructions. You should break each task down into a separate part with its own unique set of instructions.
These parts, just like the steps, go in sequential order. You can't remove the engine cover before jacking the car or removing the part blocking it. Parts should be listed in the order that they need to be completed.
Try to keep each task around 10 steps. If you go over 10 steps, find another task or part to break the procedure into.
This helps people be able to go back and track their progress. They will know when they have successfully completed a part. Additionally, if they made a mistake, they can go back and fix it without having to redo the entire set of instructions.

If a step has a related action that must be completed together, explain them in their sequence in the same sentence. For example, "Before pouring the cake in the pan, coat the pan with cooking spray" or "Coat the pan with cooking spray. Then pour the cake into the pan."

For example, "When the cake is done, insert a toothpick into the middle. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done."

If there are conditions which make one step better in a certain situation, make sure to discuss that.
If one step is easier, cheaper, or more effective, make sure to explain that. [12] X Research source

Add supplementary information into the substeps. This information gives you further detail about the step, such as what something might look like before and after or why the step is important.

Step 9 Place warnings and conditions at the beginning.

This step is extremely important. If you have completed the instructions yourself, you will already know where you might encounter problems. That's why it's important to go through the process as you are writing the instructions.

Finishing the Instructions

Use a headings to label each discrete part of the instructions.
Use numbers when listing the steps in order.
Use bullets to list alternatives, additional information, or anything else under the steps.
Visually separate the steps. Place a space between the steps to show a difference.

For example, "Instructions for Baking an Eggless Chocolate Cake" is much more specific than "Chocolate Cake."

Step 3 Use visuals and diagrams if necessary.

Make sure visuals are near the prose. It should go above, below, or beside the step.

Expert Q&A

About This Article

If you need to write out instructions for a task, start by performing the task yourself. Write down everything that you have to do in order, and include any specific details a reader might need to know. Start your steps with action verbs like “Add,” “Paint,” or “Cut” so the reader clearly understands what they need to do. Open with an introduction to let the reader know what the instructions are for, as well as anything important they might need to know before they start. Also, include a list of supplies or ingredients the person might need. Keep reading to learn how to identify your audience before you start writing! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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A Guide to Effective Writing Instruction

Teacher providing individualized writing support to two students seated at a table, engaging in one-on-one instruction and collaborative writing guidance."

In this blog post, Dr. Gary Troia explores the world of effective writing instruction, linking structured literacy practices with the art of teaching writing effectively to provide valuable insights for educators. Throughout this post, readers will gain a deep understanding of the essential elements of effective writing instruction and how to seamlessly incorporate them into the structured literacy classroom.

Table of Contents

Understanding Structured Literacy

The Writing Rope by Joan Sedita

Characteristics of effective writing curriculum, references and further reading, introduction to structured literacy, understanding structured literacy and its role in reading and writing education.

In structured literacy classrooms in which principles associated with the science of reading are employed, teachers use comprehensive, systematic, and explicit instruction to address the fundamental building blocks of successful reading—phonological awareness, phonics patterns, reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension (which is addressed primarily through the development of topic and discourse knowledge). Of course, reading is only one aspect of literacy that requires teachers’ expertise and focus; writing development and instruction also benefit from a structured literacy approach. However, many teachers may be unfamiliar with teaching writing using this approach, in part because most teachers have little preparation to teach writing and because there has been a dearth of high-quality writing curricula and instructional materials available for teachers to use.

? Download Free Lesson Plans: Bridge to Writing is a comprehensive writing curriculum for K-5 classrooms that develops strong writers through research-based instruction, making writing instruction easy for teachers and engaging for students.

The Essential Components of Writing Instruction

The Writing Rope by Joan Sedita (2022) offers a convenient way of remembering the critical building blocks of writing in a structured literacy classroom. These are: (1) transcription skills, namely spelling, handwriting, and keyboarding; (2) text structures, including types of writing genres and their main structural elements (e.g., narratives have a setting, a plot with a climax, and character reactions), varied discourse patterns within genres (e.g., compare-contrast versus cause-effect, flashbacks, and flashforwards, haiku versus sonnet), paragraph organization, and vocabulary used to signal linkages and transitions between ideas; (3) syntax, which includes awareness and use of appropriate grammatical structures to most effectively convey meaning; sentence elaboration and combining; and punctuation used to signal syntactic elements; (4) writing craft, namely precise and varied word choice, literary devices (e.g., allusion, symbolism, onomatopoeia), and awareness of task, audience, and purpose; and (5) critical thinking, which includes gathering information through reading source materials and/or performing their own investigations, generating and organizing ideas (i.e., planning), drafting text by hand or through digital means in manageable segments, and revising and editing a text for communicative effectiveness.

All these building blocks in the structured writing classroom must be thoughtfully coordinated to form a comprehensive writing program for students, which is necessary across grades and across disciplines taught in schools to help all students become competent writers. An exemplary writing program also will typically have the following characteristics (see Troia, 2013 for more information):

• Meaningful writing experiences and authentic writing tasks that promote personal and collective expression, reflection, inquiry, discovery, and social change whenever possible to motivate students.

• A sense of community in which risks are encouraged, children and teachers are both viewed as and engage as writers, personal ownership is expected, and collaboration is a cornerstone so that students are willing to experiment with their writing.

• Predictable routines that involve both explicit instruction (i.e., modeling with teacher think-aloud, guided collaborative practice with feedback, and independent practice opportunities with feedback) and sustained student practice; in kindergarten, at least 30 minutes daily is recommended, while beyond kindergarten at least one hour daily is recommended, with half the time allocated to explicit instruction (see Graham et al., 2012).

• A common language for shared expectations and feedback regarding writing quality, which might include the use of traits (e.g., organization, ideas, sentence fluency, word choice, voice, conventions, and presentation).

• Procedural supports such as anchor charts, student-teacher and peer conferences, graphic organizers, checklists for revision/editing, “booster” lessons to help students attain mastery, and computer tools for removing transcription barriers when necessary.

• Integration of writing instruction with reading instruction and content-area instruction (e.g., use of touchstone or mentor texts to guide genre study used for all literacy activities, use of common themes across the curriculum, maintaining learning notebooks in math and science classes as source material for writing, teaching decoding and spelling of the same phonics patterns, teaching letter formation while introducing letter-sound correspondences).

• Intentional adjustments to emphasis on teaching the writing process, form, and meaning to meet learners’ needs.

• Differentiated instruction for struggling learners, multilingual learners, and advanced learners.

• Resident writers and guest authors who share their expertise, struggles, and successes so that children and teachers have positive role models and develop a broader sense of writing craft.

• Opportunities for teachers to upgrade and expand their own conceptions of writing, the writing process, and how children learn to write, primarily through professional development activities but also through being active members of a writing community (e.g., the National Writing Project).

? Blog Post : Read “11 Science of Reading Resources Every Educator Should Know About” blog post here! Our literacy specialists curated a list of 11+ NEW resources for educators who wish to further their knowledge about the Science of Reading.

Empowering Writers Through Self-Regulation

To assist students with navigating all the complex aspects of writing, teachers should consider the role of self-regulation in writing, as successful writers are highly aware of themselves as writers, of factors that influence their writing performance, and of how to use diverse strategies to manage these factors effectively. Self-regulation in writing includes at least three coordinated components: (1) goal setting, (2)self-talk, and (3) self-evaluation. Incorporating self-regulation components in writing instruction has been shown to positively affect both strong and weak writers’ composing abilities (e.g., Graham, Harris, & Mason, 2005; Graham & Perin, 2007).

The Power of Goal Setting in Writing

Setting goals enhances attention, motivation, and effort and facilitates strategic behaviors (e.g., planning before drafting) through the valuation of goal attainment. In other words, if a goal is sufficiently important, a student will do all that is necessary to attain it. Research has demonstrated that goal setting improves writing skills (e.g., De La Paz, 2007; Page-Voth & Graham, 1999). For goals to have the most beneficial impact on writing behavior and performance and to encourage the student to marshal sufficient effort, they should be challenging (i.e., just beyond the student’s current level of writing skill), proximal (i.e., attainable within a short period of time), concrete, and self-selected or collaboratively established (because real or perceived control boosts achievement motivation). Goals can focus on a writing process (e.g., “I will use my graphic organizer to help me write”; “I will have my writing partner check my paper for mistakes before I put it in my portfolio”) or an aspect of the product (e.g., “I will be sure to have at least three main ideas and, for each idea, two supporting details in my informative paper”; I will include at least five action helpers, descriptive words, or transition words to improve my word choice”).

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The Magic of Self-Talk for Young Writers

Self-talk (instructions, questions, affirmations, or exhortations directed to oneself) helps orient attention to relevant information, organize thoughts, plan actions, and execute behaviors. In addition, self-talk helps one cope with anxiety, frustration, self-doubt, and impulsivity, which tend to plague struggling writers and even those who are more accomplished writers. Self-talk has been widely investigated for several decades by researchers in many areas of psychology—sports, counseling, psychotherapy, and education—with promising results (e.g., Dobson, 2010; Manning & Payne, 1996). With respect to teaching young writers to use self-talk, it is most effective when (1) the content is tailored to the demands of the task and the individual’s needs; (2) it is rehearsed aloud to automaticity and then used as a form of “inner speech” to control thoughts, feelings, and actions; and (3) it is monitored for fidelity of use by the teacher. Examples of self-talk include, “Have I used my revising checklist to check my work?,” “This is hard, but I can do it if I try my best,” “I am good at coming up with ideas, so I will turn in a good paper,” and “Keep concentrating so you do not get distracted!”

Encouraging Self-Evaluation and Growth in Young Writers

Self-evaluation consists of self-monitoring and self-recording behavior and can be used to assess attention, strategy use, and task performance. Frequently, self-evaluation is accomplished through the graphic representation of a target behavior’s occurrence with a goal (thus, these two aspects of self-regulation are functionally interdependent). For instance, students might quantify their use of story structure elements in fictional narratives produced over time on a chart with the maximum score at the top (the goal). Likewise, students can track how many words they have written per time interval, with the goal of increasing their productivity by 25% over baseline. Self-evaluation has been found to positively affect behavior and academic performance (e.g., Lloyd, Bateman, Landrum, & Hallahan, 1989; Maag et al., 1993). Self-evaluation helps students establish worthwhile goals because the concrete data collected during this process provide feedback on their status relative to an external benchmark or a personal goal.

Fostering Writing Skills with Mentor Texts

Several other practices based on empirical research and informed professional practice can help teachers foster writing development (see Graham & Perin, 2007). The examination of touchstone or mentor texts for attributes that students can mimic in their own writing (e.g., a strong lead for an informative article, the use of dialogue to advance the plot in a story, applying onomatopoeia to create vivid sensory details, the use of punctuation and capitalization to mark and build cadence in a poem) helps them internalize a mental model for the written product and identify rhetorical goals. It thus gives students a focus for their planning and revising efforts. The use of mentor texts is enhanced when strong models of particular aspects of writing are contrasted with weak examples. A related instructional practice involves activities to develop genre and topic knowledge. Again, such knowledge can help students acquire internal frames of reference or performance benchmarks for planning and making meaningful revisions to their writing. In many cases, knowledge about a genre is appropriated through immersion in texts that exemplify the canonical genre traits (e.g., story structure) and discussion of (1) how the genre reflects a unique way of communicating ideas within specific contexts (its purposes and functions) and (2) how the genre is embodied in the structure of the text (its form). Explicit and systematic instruction in genre structure, coupled with authentic purposes for reading and writing in that genre, positively impacts the quality of students’ writing within a genre (e.g., Purcell-Gates, Duke, & Martineau, 2007).

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Elevating Writing through Effective Peer and Teacher Conferencing

Finally, peer and teacher conferencing, whether one-on-one or in small groups, is frequently used in structured writing classrooms to engineer better student papers. However, conferencing between students and teachers often has the “flavor” of typical instructional discourse (teacher-controlled and centered on assignment requirements and teacher expectations) rather than egalitarian conversations regarding writing craft and composition content, especially when the teacher is more knowledgeable about the writing topic. Moreover, peer respondents often provide vague and unhelpful comments and suggestions to authors unless they are explicitly taught to give meaningful feedback. Thus, the positive impact of conference feedback on the quality of students’ papers is likely because many students benefit from attention to even the most global aspects of composition, such as text structure and form, and notably improve their texts with even limited revision. To maximize the effectiveness of writing conferences, a teacher should aim to do the following (see Martin & Certo, 2008):

• Establish a conversational stance to understand students’ goals and ideas before discussing specific textual issues.

• Provide frequent and varied opportunities for conferencing about pieces of writing.

• Encourage flash drafting, a technique in which smaller segments of text (e.g., the climax of a story) are drafted, examined (through conferencing), and revised to help the student feel less invested in a completed draft of the whole paper.

• Collaboratively establish concrete goals for planning, drafting, and/or revision.

• Give weaker writers more conference time that is also of high quality.

• Along with a student’s text, use checklists, questionnaires, and graphic aids as touchpoints during conferences to help link concrete tools with strategic behaviors.

Empowering Educators Through Effective Writing Instruction

In conclusion, effective writing instruction is a vital component of literacy education, and when coupled with structured literacy practices, it can genuinely empower educators and students alike. I hope this blog post has shed light on the critical elements of effective writing instruction and how they can be harnessed within structured literacy classrooms. For those eager to explore this topic further, I invite you to learn more about Bridge to Writing at heggerty.org/bridgetowriting, where you can access valuable resources and tools to enhance your teaching journey. Together, we can help students become proficient and confident writers.

? Ready to dive into more learning? Take a peek at some of our popular structured literacy resources:

Blog Post: 30 Science of Reading Resources
Blog Post: Why Make the Switch? Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls
Webinar: Defining Sight Words, High-Frequency Words, Red Words, and Heart Words
Webinar: Why Teach Articulation Awareness? The Importance of Accurate Sound Production in Literacy

De La Paz, S. (2007). Managing cognitive demands for writing: Comparing the effects of instructional components in strategy instruction. Reading and Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 23, 249-266.

Dobson, K S. (Ed.). (2010). Handbook of cognitive-behavioral therapies (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

Graham, S., Bollinger, A., Booth Olson, C., D’Aoust, C., MacArthur, C., McCutchen, D., & Olinghouse,

N. (2012). Teaching elementary school students to be effective writers: A practice guide (NCEE 2012-

4058). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications_reviews.aspx#pubsearch.

Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Mason, L. (2005). Improving the writing performance, knowledge, and self-efficacy of struggling young writers: The effects of self-regulated strategy development. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 207-241.

Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools—A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York . Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Lloyd, J. W., Bateman, D. F., Landrum, T. J., & Hallahan, D. P. (1989). Self-recording of attention versus productivity. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 22, 315-323.

Maag, J. W., Reid, R., & DiGangi, S. A (1993). Differential effects of self-monitoring attention, accuracy, and productivity. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 26, 329-344.

Manning, B. H., & Payne, B. D. (1996). Self-talk for teachers and students: Metacognitive strategies

for personal and classroom use . Allyn & Bacon.

Martin, N. M., & Certo, J. L. (2008, February). Truth or tale? The efficacy of teacher-student writing conferences . Paper presented at the Third Writing Research across Borders Conference, Santa Barbara, CA.

Page-Voth, V., & Graham, S. (1999). Effects of goal setting and strategy use on the writing performance and self-efficacy of students with writing and learning problems. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 230-240.

Purcell-Gates, V., Duke, N. K., & Martineau, J. A (2007). Learning to read and write genre-specific texts: Roles of authentic experience and explicit teaching. Reading Research Quarterly, 42, 8-45.

Sedita, J. (2022). The writing rope: A framework for explicit writing instruction in all subjects . Brookes Publishing.

Troia, G. A. (2013). Effective writing instruction in the 21st century. In B. M. Taylor & N. K. Duke (Eds.), Handbook of effective literacy instruction: Research-based practice K-8 (pp. 298-345). Guilford Press.

Gary A. Troia, PhD, CCC-SLP

Gary A. Troia, PhD, CCC-SLP, is Associate Professor of Special Education at Michigan State University. Prior to receiving his doctorate from the University of Maryland in 2000, he worked 10 years in the public schools as a special educator and speech- language pathologist, and 6 years as a university clinical supervisor. Dr. Troia is co- editor of the journal Topics in Language Disorders and serves on the editorial boards of several top special education journals. With colleagues Froma Roth and Colleen Worthington, he developed a phonological awareness intervention program for young at-risk children called Promoting Awareness of Speech Sounds (PASS), published by Attainment Company. With fellow researchers Lori Skibbe and Ryan Bowles and funding through the Institute of Education Sciences, he has developed an online phonological awareness assessment for young children with complex communication needs called ATLAS-PA, one component of the Access to Literacy Assessment System. Dr. Troia has authored over 70 research papers, book chapters, and white papers and has given numerous presentations about his work in the areas of phonological processing and awareness, writing assessment and instruction, and teacher professional development in literacy. He has been awarded over $6.5 million in intramural and extramural grants and contracts.

Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Four Strategies for Effective Writing Instruction

(This is the first post in a two-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is the single most effective instructional strategy you have used to teach writing?

Teaching and learning good writing can be a challenge to educators and students alike.

The topic is no stranger to this column—you can see many previous related posts at Writing Instruction .

But I don’t think any of us can get too much good instructional advice in this area.

Today, Jenny Vo, Michele Morgan, and Joy Hamm share wisdom gained from their teaching experience.

Before I turn over the column to them, though, I’d like to share my favorite tool(s).

Graphic organizers, including writing frames (which are basically more expansive sentence starters) and writing structures (which function more as guides and less as “fill-in-the-blanks”) are critical elements of my writing instruction.

You can see an example of how I incorporate them in my seven-week story-writing unit and in the adaptations I made in it for concurrent teaching.

You might also be interested in The Best Scaffolded Writing Frames For Students .

Now, to today’s guests:

‘Shared Writing’

Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has worked with English-learners during all of her 24 years in education and is currently an ESL ISST in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas. Jenny is the president-elect of TexTESOL IV and works to advocate for all ELs:

The single most effective instructional strategy that I have used to teach writing is shared writing. Shared writing is when the teacher and students write collaboratively. In shared writing, the teacher is the primary holder of the pen, even though the process is a collaborative one. The teacher serves as the scribe, while also questioning and prompting the students.

The students engage in discussions with the teacher and their peers on what should be included in the text. Shared writing can be done with the whole class or as a small-group activity.

There are two reasons why I love using shared writing. One, it is a great opportunity for the teacher to model the structures and functions of different types of writing while also weaving in lessons on spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

It is a perfect activity to do at the beginning of the unit for a new genre. Use shared writing to introduce the students to the purpose of the genre. Model the writing process from beginning to end, taking the students from idea generation to planning to drafting to revising to publishing. As you are writing, make sure you refrain from making errors, as you want your finished product to serve as a high-quality model for the students to refer back to as they write independently.

Another reason why I love using shared writing is that it connects the writing process with oral language. As the students co-construct the writing piece with the teacher, they are orally expressing their ideas and listening to the ideas of their classmates. It gives them the opportunity to practice rehearsing what they are going to say before it is written down on paper. Shared writing gives the teacher many opportunities to encourage their quieter or more reluctant students to engage in the discussion with the types of questions the teacher asks.

Writing well is a skill that is developed over time with much practice. Shared writing allows students to engage in the writing process while observing the construction of a high-quality sample. It is a very effective instructional strategy used to teach writing.

‘Four Square’

Michele Morgan has been writing IEPs and behavior plans to help students be more successful for 17 years. She is a national-board-certified teacher, Utah Teacher Fellow with Hope Street Group, and a special education elementary new-teacher specialist with the Granite school district. Follow her @MicheleTMorgan1:

For many students, writing is the most dreaded part of the school day. Writing involves many complex processes that students have to engage in before they produce a product—they must determine what they will write about, they must organize their thoughts into a logical sequence, and they must do the actual writing, whether on a computer or by hand. Still they are not done—they must edit their writing and revise mistakes. With all of that, it’s no wonder that students struggle with writing assignments.

In my years working with elementary special education students, I have found that writing is the most difficult subject to teach. Not only do my students struggle with the writing process, but they often have the added difficulties of not knowing how to spell words and not understanding how to use punctuation correctly. That is why the single most effective strategy I use when teaching writing is the Four Square graphic organizer.

The Four Square instructional strategy was developed in 1999 by Judith S. Gould and Evan Jay Gould. When I first started teaching, a colleague allowed me to borrow the Goulds’ book about using the Four Square method, and I have used it ever since. The Four Square is a graphic organizer that students can make themselves when given a blank sheet of paper. They fold it into four squares and draw a box in the middle of the page. The genius of this instructional strategy is that it can be used by any student, in any grade level, for any writing assignment. These are some of the ways I have used this strategy successfully with my students:

* Writing sentences: Students can write the topic for the sentence in the middle box, and in each square, they can draw pictures of details they want to add to their writing.

* Writing paragraphs: Students write the topic sentence in the middle box. They write a sentence containing a supporting detail in three of the squares and they write a concluding sentence in the last square.

* Writing short essays: Students write what information goes in the topic paragraph in the middle box, then list details to include in supporting paragraphs in the squares.

When I gave students writing assignments, the first thing I had them do was create a Four Square. We did this so often that it became automatic. After filling in the Four Square, they wrote rough drafts by copying their work off of the graphic organizer and into the correct format, either on lined paper or in a Word document. This worked for all of my special education students!

I was able to modify tasks using the Four Square so that all of my students could participate, regardless of their disabilities. Even if they did not know what to write about, they knew how to start the assignment (which is often the hardest part of getting it done!) and they grew to be more confident in their writing abilities.

In addition, when it was time to take the high-stakes state writing tests at the end of the year, this was a strategy my students could use to help them do well on the tests. I was able to give them a sheet of blank paper, and they knew what to do with it. I have used many different curriculum materials and programs to teach writing in the last 16 years, but the Four Square is the one strategy that I have used with every writing assignment, no matter the grade level, because it is so effective.

‘Swift Structures’

Joy Hamm has taught 11 years in a variety of English-language settings, ranging from kindergarten to adult learners. The last few years working with middle and high school Newcomers and completing her M.Ed in TESOL have fostered stronger advocacy in her district and beyond:

A majority of secondary content assessments include open-ended essay questions. Many students falter (not just ELs) because they are unaware of how to quickly organize their thoughts into a cohesive argument. In fact, the WIDA CAN DO Descriptors list level 5 writing proficiency as “organizing details logically and cohesively.” Thus, the most effective cross-curricular secondary writing strategy I use with my intermediate LTELs (long-term English-learners) is what I call “Swift Structures.” This term simply means reading a prompt across any content area and quickly jotting down an outline to organize a strong response.

To implement Swift Structures, begin by displaying a prompt and modeling how to swiftly create a bubble map or outline beginning with a thesis/opinion, then connecting the three main topics, which are each supported by at least three details. Emphasize this is NOT the time for complete sentences, just bulleted words or phrases.

Once the outline is completed, show your ELs how easy it is to plug in transitions, expand the bullets into detailed sentences, and add a brief introduction and conclusion. After modeling and guided practice, set a 5-10 minute timer and have students practice independently. Swift Structures is one of my weekly bell ringers, so students build confidence and skill over time. It is best to start with easy prompts where students have preformed opinions and knowledge in order to focus their attention on the thesis-topics-supporting-details outline, not struggling with the rigor of a content prompt.

Here is one easy prompt example: “Should students be allowed to use their cellphones in class?”

Swift Structure outline:

Thesis - Students should be allowed to use cellphones because (1) higher engagement (2) learning tools/apps (3) gain 21st-century skills

Topic 1. Cellphones create higher engagement in students...

Details A. interactive (Flipgrid, Kahoot)

B. less tempted by distractions

C. teaches responsibility

Topic 2. Furthermore,...access to learning tools...

A. Google Translate description

B. language practice (Duolingo)

C. content tutorials (Kahn Academy)

Topic 3. In addition,...practice 21st-century skills…

Details A. prep for workforce

B. access to information

C. time-management support

This bare-bones outline is like the frame of a house. Get the structure right, and it’s easier to fill in the interior decorating (style, grammar), roof (introduction) and driveway (conclusion). Without the frame, the roof and walls will fall apart, and the reader is left confused by circuitous rubble.

Once LTELs have mastered creating simple Swift Structures in less than 10 minutes, it is time to introduce complex questions similar to prompts found on content assessments or essays. Students need to gain assurance that they can quickly and logically explain and justify their opinions on multiple content essays without freezing under pressure.

Thanks to Jenny, Michele, and Joy for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching .

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign—new ones are not yet available). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first nine years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.

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Writing Tips

5 Top Tips for Writing Clear Instructions

5-minute read
3rd March 2021

Instructions need to be easy to follow if they’re going to be useful. But how can you ensure this? We have five tips to help you write clear instructions:

Write an introduction explaining what the instructions will cover.
Break down the task into clear, logical steps.
Use the imperative mood when writing up your instructions for clarity.
Write instructions using simple, easy-to-understand language.
Get your instructions proofread to make sure they’re error free.

We will look at these tips for writing clear instructions in more detail below.

1. Write an Introduction

Start your instructions with a short introduction. This should detail:

Exactly what the instructions will cover and what the end result will be.
How the instructions are set out and how to use them.
Any equipment or prior knowledge needed to complete the task.
Any hazards the user should know about before starting.

The content of your introduction will depend on what your instructions are for, but the key idea is preparing your reader to follow your directions.

Imagine, for example, you were explaining how to put together a piece of furniture. You could begin your instructions with a short introduction that:

Briefly explains the aim of the instructions and illustrates the finished piece.
Explains how to use the instructions (e.g., how illustrations relate to text).
Lists the tools and skills needed for the job.
Warns that using the wrong tools could damage the furniture.

The reader would then be prepared to start doing the task described.

2. Break the Task Down into Steps

Clear instructions will break the process you are explaining down into logical steps. You can then present these steps as a numbered list made up of short sentences.

Each step should cover a single action. However, the detail you go into may depend on what your intended reader is likely to know. For instance, if we were writing a proofreading guide for experienced Microsoft Word users, we might start with:

1. Open the document and turn on the Track Changes mode.

But if we were writing for someone new to Word, we might break this down more:

1. Double click the document icon to open it in Microsoft Word. 2. Go to the Review tab on the main ribbon. 3. Find the “Tracking” section and click the “Track Changes” button. Find this useful? Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox. Your e-mail address Subscribe Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter!

For more complex instructions with many steps, you might also want to break them down into sections. In a recipe for an especially elaborate cake, for instance, you could group instructions under headings for different parts (e.g., one set of instructions for the main cake, then separate sections for the filling and icing).

This allows the reader to take on one short set of instructions at a time, thus ensuring they don’t become confusing or overwhelming.

3. Write Clearly and Concisely

As well as breaking down the task into steps, each instruction should be clear and concise in itself. A few tips for ensuring clarity when writing instructions include:

Address the reader directly in the imperative mood . This means phrasing each instruction as a command or request.
Watch out for repetition, redundancy, and other forms of wordiness .
Avoid unnecessary jargon and use everyday language where possible.

The key is to adapt the complexity of the language in your instructions to suit the needs of your intended reader. If you think the reader will be unfamiliar with any technical terms you do use, moreover, define them clearly when they’re introduced.

4. Use Visuals to Back Up the Text

Visuals, such as technical illustrations , can give a point of reference that purely text-based instructions never can, thus making them easier to use.

Visuals also transcend language barriers, so the more you can get across visually, the more people will be able to use your instructions.

If appropriate, then, consider adding images at key points. Focus on steps that might be difficult to understand otherwise, and make sure to label images clearly.

For digital or online instructions, you could even embed or link to a video. This could be for the entire process. Or it could just be to clarify specific steps (e.g., a video demonstrating a technique used during a single step).

5. Proofread Your Instructions

When you have a draft of your instructions, it’s time for quality control! The best method for this is to ask someone to follow your instructions in practice.

If they complete the task based on your instructions alone, then you have a good, clear set of instructions! But if they struggle with anything, revisit the problem step(s) and redraft for clarity. Don’t forget to ask your test user for feedback, too.

Once you are happy with your draft, you can move on to proofreading. This will ensure your instructions are error free and clearly phrased throughout. It is a good idea to use a professional proofreading service for this, as it is easy to miss errors in your own work. And our expert proofreaders are always on hand to help!

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Writing Instructions

Dawn Atkinson

Chapter Overview

This chapter aims to help you learn to write instructions , documents that explain in step-by-step fashion how to perform a task (McMurrey, 2017a, para. 3). Instructions exist for any number of things, and in your home life, you may have come across driving directions; seed planting guidelines; assembly, care, and repair directions; first aid procedures; and directions for playing games. Instructions are also produced in the workplace, to help employees, clients, and users complete tasks efficiently, safely, and confidently. This chapter discusses points to keep in mind when writing instructions and provides several example sets of instructions as artefacts for analysis, critique, and guidance.

Before we begin to explore the genre of instructions in depth, think for a moment about instructions you have come across and how easy they were to use. Now, answer the following question: As a reader, what do you want from a set of instructions?

Keep these ideas in mind when writing a set of instructions to ensure your document is clear, complete, concise, correct, and usable.

Planning a Set of Instructions

Before you begin writing a set of instructions, it is crucial to take several planning points into consideration to ensure your document successfully addresses its readers and is straightforward to use. The following paragraphs discuss these planning points in some detail.

What task will the instructions describe?

The purpose for a set of instructions is linked with the task described in the document, so you will need to identify this task when planning. Ultimately, individuals who use the instructions should be able to perform the task safely and without complication. With that idea in mind, do you anticipate readers will skip over important sections of the document to access the steps they need to complete the task? If so, what information can you foreground or signpost so readers see it? Can you group sections of information under headings to make the document easy to navigate? What other approaches can you use to highlight vital information for readers, information that will help them achieve the document’s purpose by completing the task? For instance, consider how bold text, colored text, recognizable icons (visual symbols that signify meanings), and illustrations cue readers’ attention when used purposefully and sparingly.

Who is the audience, and what do those readers need from the document?

As with any piece of technical writing, think carefully about who will use the document—readers, in other words. You will likely be able to envision a target group of readers who will use the document to perform the task it describes; however, you may also anticipate other readers who will be interested in or have a stake in the document’s production and use: employers, workplace supervisors, and legal entities, for instance. Also consider whether you need to state the target audience for the instructions on the document: for example, instructions may be written for children or adults, for individuals required to have licenses or certifications to perform activities listed in the instructions, or for beginners or people more familiar with the task described in the instructions, and you may need to explicitly identify such details on the document.

As you consider the audiences for a set of instructions, also try to anticipate what those individuals need from the document to make it reader friendly and uncomplicated to use. For instance, if you plan to use specialized terms when writing the instructions, will readers know what the language means, or will you need to define it? In addition, how will readers’ backgrounds, ages, or levels of education affect the document’s content and language?

What steps are required to perform the task?

Think carefully about the steps required to complete the operation described in the instructions. Do some of the steps need to be broken into sub-steps or grouped together under subheadings to boost reader understanding or to encourage their completion? Do certain steps need to occur simultaneously for the entire task to be completed successfully?

What items are needed to complete the task?

The items needed for a task might include materials, ingredients, or equipment, and you will need to consider whether specific quantities or types of those items are required. For instance, if you are writing a recipe that calls for corn meal, do you need to specify that it should be white or yellow?

How long will the task take to complete?

Work out how much time is needed for the task described in the instructions. Will the time vary for different groups of users, such as beginners and those with more experience? Will different times be needed for different elements of the instructions? Recipes, for instance, often list times required for both preparation and cooking. Do certain steps in the task require specific amounts of time to complete? Does the task need to be performed at a certain time?

What harm could result from undertaking the task or its steps?

If the instructions task or any of its steps could potentially lead to harm, you have an ethical and legal responsibility to say so in the document, to make this information prominent so it can be easily seen, and to make readers aware of the information before they undertake the activity. McMurrey (2017b, “Guidelines for Specific Types of Notices”) identifies four specific types of notices that can be included in instructions to indicate potential harm.

Note —To emphasize points or remind readers of something, or to indicate minor problems in the outcome of what they are doing.

Warning —To warn readers about the possibility of minor injury to themselves or others.

Caution —To warn readers about possible damage to equipment or data or about potential problems in the outcome of what they are doing.

Danger —To warn readers about the possibility of serious or fatal injury to themselves or others.

Whether the harm might be to safety, health, wellbeing, property, or equipment, you must disclose this information and make an intentional effort to draw readers’ attention to it so that it is immediately identifiable. Foreground the information at the top of the instructions, before the steps begin, and reiterate it as necessary for individual steps that could possibly cause harm. In addition, think of ways to draw readers’ attention to the information, for instance through the judicious use of recognizable icons, bold or colored text, or exclamation points. Unlike other technical and academic writing genres, such as reports, letters, memos, and essays, exclamation marks are acceptable in instructions when used to highlight harm notices. Lastly, never try to bury information about potential harm in small print or at the end of a document since readers will probably overlook it in those situations. Remember that you have an ethical and legal responsibility to clearly and openly alert readers to potential harm when writing instructions.

What visuals might help readers perform the task?

Visuals can be used in various ways in instructions—to illustrate ingredients, supplies, equipment, or steps or to show what a finished product looks like, for example—and in all instances, they should be integrated in a purposeful, logical, and cohesive way to be effective. To integrate visuals in a purposeful way, select ones that are clear, easy to follow, and practical rather than decorative, and incorporate them with the goal of helping readers successfully complete the instructions task. In addition, adhere to the following guidelines to ensure your visuals are integrated into the document in a logical way.

Place each visual beside or after the step it illustrates so readers can easily associate the two components.
Label each visual: label tables as tables and figures as figures.
Number each visual: the first table to appear is Table 1 and the first figure is Figure 1.
Compose a specific and informative caption for each visual, one that succinctly describes what the visual portrays.
Cite and reference each visual taken or adapted from an outside source.
Refer to each visual by its label and number in the text before the visual appears.
Explain each visual in the text before it appears.

Also consider sandwiching each visual in between text so it flows into the document in a cohesive way. To do so, explain the visual in the text before it appears, provide the visual, and then comment on the visual. This technique helps to ensure that visuals are never left on their own at the top or bottom of a page without explanation or context.

What might help readers if they encounter difficulties when using the instructions?

Since readers should be at the forefront of your mind when composing instructions, consider how you can help them overcome difficulties when completing the instructions task. Specifically, do you need to include a troubleshooting section that identifies possible issues and how to resolve them? Though you may find it challenging to pinpoint reader difficulties on your own, a usability test can help in this regard. Usability , in this case, refers to how straightforward a piece of communication is to use in relationship to the task it describes or its readers’ goals, although usability can also be tested on products. Usability is an important consideration for persons, companies, governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations that wish to produce documents that are functionally sound, easy to navigate, approachable in terms of design, accessible to all readers, and centered around readers’ needs. Ultimately, usability tests can lead to increased user productivity and satisfaction and, consequently, to enhanced reputation for the entity that produced the document.

While usability tests can be conducted in various ways, here are two approaches that you may decide to implement when developing instructions. Ask another person (ideally, several people) to work through the instructions document to perform the task described therein while you are present. The person you select should be among the target readership you have identified for the document. Observe the user during the exercise, and make notes on content or steps the user has difficulty with. For instance, if the user takes an unanticipated amount of time to complete a certain step, this observation can indicate a usability issue with the document and should be noted down. Afterwards, interview the user about his or her experiences with the document. You might use the following questions as a starting point for the interview.

What did you think of the document as a whole?
What did you think of the document’s title and headings?
How noticeable was the information about potential harm?
What made them so?
What could be done to make these parts even more straightforward?
What could be done to improve these parts?
What did you think of the visual(s) used in the document?

After the observation and interview sessions are finished, use the data you collected to revise your instructions for the benefit of readers.

Organizing a Set of Instructions

To be readily usable, a set of instructions must be well organized. To achieve this goal, plan to develop a specific and informative title and introduction, body, and conclusion sections for the document.

Writing the title and introduction section

The title for a set of instructions should identify the task described in the instructions and be clear and concise. Indeed, readers should recognize what the document is about just by reading its title: for example, you likely know what to expect when reading the title “How to Format a Memo.” Place the immediately recognizable title before the introduction when writing instructions.

The introduction section should provide enough contextual information so that readers know what task the set of instructions describes, the meanings of key terms used in the document, if the task needs to be performed under certain conditions, the intended audience for the document, the time needed for the task, and whether any harm could result from undertaking the activity or any of its steps. These items are listed in no particular order, and you may be able to combine some of them in your introduction to keep it concise.

The introduction should also list all materials, equipment, or ingredients needed so that users can assemble these items before beginning the task described in the instructions. Consider using a bullet point list to facilitate easy reading; bullet points do not indicate sequential order or order of importance, so they are generally appropriate for a list of supplies. Finally, when compiling the list, be exact about the types and amounts of items needed.

Writing the body section

The body section of the document needs to clearly explain how to accomplish the task described in the instructions. To this end, consider numbering the steps of operation required for the task, and list just one operation per step to help readers follow along. If certain steps require sub-steps to complete, letter the sub-steps to indicate a sequential order or bullet them if they do not specify a sequential order, and place them underneath the main steps. As with any list, sub-divide only as needed: present at least two sub-steps underneath a main step to justify the division. Use complete sentences—that include the article words a , an , and the —and the active voice for the steps and sub-steps so the procedures are easy to understand; to maintain the active voice and parallel structure in the list, give readers polite commands by beginning each step with a present tense verb (e.g., “ Press the red button three times”). If readers need specific details about duration, measurements, or distances to complete steps, then include that information. Lastly, write for target readers by using language and terms they can readily understand.

Writing the conclusion section

The conclusion section should tell readers what to expect once they have completed the task described in the instructions. Recipes, for example, frequently include photos of finished dishes, while seed packets often say when gardeners can expect to see plant growth or blooms. If you anticipate readers will need additional information to complete the task confidently, you might include a troubleshooting or tips section in the conclusion.

Analyzing and Critiquing Instructions

Look carefully at the instructions in Figure 1, which describe an exercise regimen designed to help elderly people avoid falls (STEADI, 2017). Afterwards, answer the questions listed. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.

How does Figure 1 follow the guidelines discussed in this chapter?
How does Figure 1 diverge from the guidelines discussed in this chapter?
What are the positive and negative features of the instructions in Figure 1?
How could the instructions in Figure 1 be improved?

Figure 1. Instructions for an exercise routine intended to help the elderly avoid falls

Now read through the instructions in Figure 2 (Bennett, 2018), which explain how to adjust to wearing a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, a device designed to improve breathing function by keeping a person’s airway open. Afterwards, answer the questions listed. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.

How does Figure 2 follow the guidelines discussed in this chapter?
How does Figure 2 diverge from the guidelines discussed in this chapter?
What are the positive and negative features of the instructions in Figure 2?
How could the instructions in Figure 2 be improved?
How does Figure 2 compare with Figure 1?

Figure 2. Instructions for acclimating to the use of a CPAP machine

What can you take away from this activity that may help you when writing a set of instructions?

Designing a Set of Instructions

Beyond the formatting considerations already discussed in this chapter, also take into account the visual design principles of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity, identified by author and visual designer Robin Williams (2015, p. 13), when developing a set of instructions to help maximize the document’s visual appeal and usability.

Contrast —Content that is different in function or importance is also visually different.

Repetition —Design elements are repeated to establish consistency.

Alignment —Similar items are lined up with one other.

Proximity —Related elements are placed near one another.

Design that integrates these principles prioritizes reader perception and document functionality.

The instructions in Figure 3 (Public Health Preparedness and Response, 2016) combine text and visual content to explain how to prepare a home for a coming hurricane. Review the document, and answer the following question about it: How does the figure employ contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity? Be prepared to discuss your ideas in class.

Figure 3. Instructions that describe how to prepare a home for an approaching hurricane

Having looked at Figure 3 carefully, answer the following question about the instructions: What suggestions might improve the document’s design and functionality? Be prepared to discuss your response in class.

Now review Figure 4 (Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre, University of Toronto Mississauga, n.d., p. 5), time management instructions that combine text and visual content. How does the figure employ contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity? How does Figure 4 compare with Figure 3? Be prepared to discuss your ideas in class.

Figure 4. Instructions for managing study time effectively

What suggestions might improve Figure 4’s design and functionality? Be prepared to discuss your response in class.

Chapter Wrap-Up

Like any technical document, effective instructions require thoughtful planning, organization, and design, as this chapter explains. These efforts, in turn, have the potential to bring about positive outcomes since instructions can help readers complete tasks efficiently, confidently, and safely when they are developed with care.

Activity A: Thinking about Word Use in Instructions

Unlike some other technical writing genres, such as formal reports, the word you is acceptable in instructions. Why is this so? Answer this question, and be prepared to discuss your response in class.

Activity B: Finding and Critiquing a Set of Instructions with a Harm Notice

Locate a set of instructions that includes one or more notices about potential harm, either to safety, health, well-being, property, equipment, or a combination of these, and answer the following questions about the document.

How clear was the notice about possible harm?
How easy was the notice to detect?
What, if anything, might help readers to better distinguish the notice from the rest of the instructions so it is instantly recognizable?
What can you take away from this activity that might help you when writing a set of instructions?

Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.

Activity C: Creating a Checklist to Use When Writing and Revising Instructions

Using the information presented in this chapter and what you learned from activities A and B, create a checklist to use when writing and revising instructions. Be prepared to discuss your checklist items in class.

Homework: Composing a Set of Instructions

Prepare a set of clear, concise instructions that describe a task with which you are familiar; select a task from your personal or professional life that can be completed in five to 10 steps. The instructions should be no more than two pages in length and include at least one visual. Although you can incorporate digital photos you have taken into the document without acknowledging their source, you must cite and reference any outside material—including visuals—you use in the instructions. Unless you are told otherwise, employ block style when designing the document to maximize space: single space the document, left align its text, and insert one blank line in between paragraphs.

Remember to call upon this chapter for guidance when producing your assignment.

Use the subheading questions in “Planning a Set of Instructions” to formulate ideas when starting the instructions assignment.
Use the checklist you developed in Activity C to write and revise the instructions.
Use the McNamee (2019) handout when deciding which articles ( a , an , or the ) to insert into your instructions document.
Use the information in “What Might Help Readers if They Encounter Difficulties When Using the Instructions?” to usability test your document.

Bennett, K. (2018). Getting used to your (C)PAP machine (short) . Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan. License: CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 . http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/SleepDisorders/GettingUsedToCPAPShort.pdf

McMurrey, D. (2017a). Instructions: Tell them how to do it! License: CC-BY 4.0 . https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/textbook/instrux.html

McMurrey, D. (2017b). Special notices: Keep readers safe, productive, and well-informed . License: CC-BY 4.0 . https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/textbook/notices.html

McNamee, K. (2019). Articles . Colorado School of Mines Writing Center. License: CC-BY-NC 4.0 . https://www.mines.edu/otcc/wp-content/uploads/sites/303/2019/12/otccarticlelesson.pdf

Public Health Preparedness and Response. (2016). Be ready! Hurricanes . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. License: CC-PD . https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/infographics/00_docs/beready_hurricanes.pdf

Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre, University of Toronto Mississauga. (n.d.). 6 essential skills for your academic career at UTM . License: CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 . https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/asc/sites/files/asc/public/shared/pdf/study_skills/SkillsBooklet__6Skills_Web_v1.pdf

STEADI: Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths & Injuries. (2017). Chair rise exercise . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. License: CC-PD. https://www.cdc.gov/steadi/pdf/STEADI-Brochure-ChairRiseEx-508.pdf

Williams, R. (2015). The non-designers design book (4th ed.). Peachpit Press.

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7 Teaching Principles for Effective Writing Instruction

In her bestselling guidebook The Writing Rope, Brookes author Joan Sedita identifies seven teaching principles that should be incorporated when you assign writing tasks and teach writing skills. Teachers, keep the guidelines in today’s post handy as you plan and revise your instruction—and prepare students for lifelong success with written expression!

Gradual release of responsibility

The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model (Pearson & Gallagher) is an effective approach for teaching writing. It is sometimes referred to as an I do it, we do it, you do it model of instruction. During the I do it stage, you provide explicit instruction of a writing skill, with modeling through think-aloud. During the We do it stage, students practice the skill individually, in small groups, or as a whole group (e.g., the class editing a paragraph together). Guide this practice and include corrective feedback when necessary. Students eventually reach the You do it stage when they are able to apply the skill independently.

Explicit instruction of writing strategies

Explicit instruction involves using structured and sequenced steps to teach a specific skill. It includes explaining a skill and modeling how it is applied using think-aloud, and providing guided practice with feedback. Teaching students strategies for planning, revising, and editing their compositions has shown a dramatic effect on the quality of students’ writing. Strategy instruction may involve teaching more generic processes, such as brainstorming or collaboration for peer revising, or it may involve strategies for accomplishing a specific type of writing task, such as writing an opinion or argument piece (Graham & Perin, 2007).

Differentiated instruction to meet individual needs

Differentiated instruction calls for designing instruction to suit individual student needs rather than using a standardized approach to instruction that assumes all students learn to write the same way. For students who struggle with different aspects of the writing process, you can provide customized scaffolds as needed to support their learning. (For more guidance on differentiation, read this post: Differentiated Instruction: 7 Key Principles and How-Tos .)

Scaffolding to support learning of new skills

Scaffolding is assistance offered by a teacher or a peer to support learning a writing skill that a student is initially unable to grasp independently, and then removal of the assistance once the skill is learned. Instructional scaffolds for writing may include the following:

Breaking a writing task into smaller, more manageable parts or steps
Providing word lists, prompts and questions, or writing tips
Providing sentence starters, writing templates, graphic organizers, and checklists
Providing opportunities for students to work collaboratively

Want more tips on scaffolding?

Read this post: 10 Simple, Low-Cost Scaffolding Tools You Can Use in Your Classroom

Opportunities for collaboration with peers

Students’ writing skills improve when they have opportunities to give feedback to their peers and receive it in return. Here are some tips for using peer collaboration to support writing instruction:

Plan how students will be grouped ahead of time. Consider personalities and potential challenges.
Alternate your method of group selection so that students are not always grouped with the same peers.
Set clear expectations for behavior, process, goals, and the final product.
Teach explicit interaction and communication rules—for example, to take turns talking, avoid interrupting, and make sure everyone participates.
Use role play to model appropriate peer discussion and interactive behaviors.
Define the task and the amount of time for collaboration.

Use of mentor text as models for writing

Most people learn new skills by emulating others, such as how to cook a meal, play basketball, or play the guitar. It is the same with writing. Use writing models, or mentor text, to show students what strong writing looks like, so they can imitate style, language, and structure in their own writing. Mentor models also show authors’ use of writing techniques associated with writing craft, also called writer’s moves.

Sometimes teachers unfamiliar with the value of sharing mentor text express concern that this practice will encourage students to copy the language used by another author instead of generating their own wording. However, it’s important to recognize that students can create their own original text when you help them analyze a specific writing technique and discuss how to use that technique. ( The Writing Rope provides more guidance on selecting and using mentor texts.)

Increasing the amount students write in all subject areas

Adequate time for students to write is essential to the development of writing skills, and that time can occur during your content instruction (Graham et al., 2012). Although some writing skills, strategies, and techniques are typically taught by the English language arts teacher during time dedicated to writing instruction, students need to practice writing on a frequent basis throughout the school day, in all subjects. Writing is one of the major strategies that helps students extend their critical thinking about a subject-area topic. Common Core Writing Standard #10 calls for students to “write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.”

The seven principles in this post are integrated in the instructional suggestions throughout The Writing Rope. Get this bestselling book to keep reading!

The Writing Rope

A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects

By Joan Sedita, M.Ed.

Perfect for professional development, this invaluable planning guide will help teachers apply the science of reading to the skill of writing—and help students master a critical aspect of literacy. Teachers of Grades 4–8 will get crystal-clear guidelines and dozens of included templates, handouts, and other resources.

References Graham, S., McKeown, D., Kiuhara, S., & Harris, K. R. (2012). A meta-analysis of writing instruction for students in elementary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104 (4), 879–896.

Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools—A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Alliance for Excellent Education.

Pearson, P. E., & Gallagher, M. C. (1983). The instruction of reading comprehension. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8 , 317–344.

Sedita, J. (2020). Keys to early writing (2nd ed.). Keys to Literacy.

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7.7 Writing Instructions

One of the most common and important uses of technical writing is to provide instructions, those step-by-step explanations of how to assemble, operate, repair, or do routine maintenance on something. Although they may seems intuitive and simple to write, instructions are some of the worst-written documents you can find. Most of us have probably had many infuriating experiences with badly written instructions. This chapter will show you what professionals consider the best techniques in providing instructions.

An effective set of instruction requires the following:

Clear, precise, and simple writing
A thorough understanding of the procedure in all its technical detail
The ability to put yourself in the place of the reader, the person trying to use your instructions
The ability to visualize the procedure in detail and to capture that awareness on paper
Willingness to test your instructions on the kind of person you wrote them for.

Preliminary Steps

At the beginning of a project to write a set of instructions, it is important to determine the structure or characteristics of the particular procedure you are going to write about. Here are some steps to follow:

1. Do a careful audience and task analysis

Early in the process, define the audience and situation of your instructions. Remember that defining an audience means defining the level of familiarity your readers have with the topic.

2. Determine the number of tasks

How many tasks are there in the procedure you are writing about? Let’s use the term procedure to refer to the whole set of activities your instructions are intended to discuss. A task is a semi-independent group of actions within the procedure: for example, setting the clock on a microwave oven is one task in the big overall procedure of operating a microwave oven.

A simple procedure like changing the oil in a car contains only one task; there are no semi-independent groupings of activities. A more complex procedure like using a microwave oven contains several semi-independent tasks: setting the clock; setting the power level; using the timer; cleaning and maintaining the microwave, among others.

Some instructions have only a single task, but have many steps within that single task. For example, imagine a set of instructions for assembling a kids’ swing set. In my own experience, there were more than a 130 steps! That can be a bit daunting. A good approach is to group similar and related steps into phases, and start renumbering the steps at each new phase. A phase then is a group of similar steps within a single-task procedure. In the swing-set example, setting up the frame would be a phase; anchoring the thing in the ground would be another; assembling the box swing would be still another.

3. Determine the best approach to the step-by-step discussion

For most instructions, you can focus on tasks, or you can focus on tools (or features of tools). In a task approach (also known as task orientation) to instructions on using a phone-answering service, you’d have these sections:

Recording your greeting
Playing back your messages
Saving your messages
Forwarding your messages
Deleting your messages, and so on

These are tasks—the typical things we’d want to do with the machine.

On the other hand, in a tools approach to instructions on using a photocopier, there likely would be sections on how to use specific features:

Copy button
Cancel button
Enlarge/reduce button
Collate/staple button
Copy-size button, and so on

If you designed a set of instructions on this plan, you’d write steps for using each button or feature of the photocopier. Instructions using this tools approach are hard to make work. Sometimes, the name of the button doesn’t quite match the task it is associated with; sometimes you have to use more than just the one button to accomplish the task. Still, there can be times when the tools/feature approach may be preferable.

4. Design groupings of tasks

Listing tasks may not be all that you need to do. There may be so many tasks that you must group them so that readers can find individual ones more easily. For example, the following are common task groupings in instructions:

Unpacking and setup tasks
Installing and customizing tasks
Basic operating tasks
Routine maintenance tasks
Troubleshooting tasks.

Common Sections in Instructions

The following is a review of the sections you’ll commonly find in instructions. Don’t assume that each one of them must be in the actual instructions you write, nor that they have to be in the order presented here, nor that these are the only sections possible in a set of instructions.

For alternative formats, check out the example instructions .

Introduction: plan the introduction to your instructions carefully. It might include any of the following (but not necessarily in this order):

Indicate the specific tasks or procedure to be explained as well as the scope (what will and will not be covered)
Indicate what the audience needs in terms of knowledge and background to understand the instructions
Give a general idea of the procedure and what it accomplishes
Indicate the conditions when these instructions should (or should not) be used
Give an overview of the contents of the instructions.

General warning, caution, danger notices : instructions often must alert readers to the possibility of ruining their equipment, screwing up the procedure, and hurting themselves. Also, instructions must often emphasize key points or exceptions. For these situations, you use special notices —note, warning, caution, and danger notices. Notice how these special notices are used in the example instructions listed above.

Technical background or theory: at the beginning of certain kinds of instructions (after the introduction), you may need a discussion of background related to the procedure. For certain instructions, this background is critical—otherwise, the steps in the procedure make no sense. For example, you may have had some experience with those software applets in which you define your own colors by nudging red, green, and blue slider bars around. To really understand what you’re doing, you need to have some background on color. Similarly, you can imagine that, for certain instructions using cameras, some theory might be needed as well.

Equipment and supplies: notice that most instructions include a list of the things you need to gather before you start the procedure. This includes equipment , the tools you use in the procedure (such as mixing bowls, spoons, bread pans, hammers, drills, and saws) and supplies , the things that are consumed in the procedure (such as wood, paint, oil, flour, and nails). In instructions, these typically are listed either in a simple vertical list or in a two-column list. Use the two-column list if you need to add some specifications to some or all of the items—for example, brand names, sizes, amounts, types, model numbers, and so on.

Discussion of the steps: when you get to the actual writing of the steps, there are several things to keep in mind: (1) the structure and format of those steps, (2) supplementary information that might be needed, and (3) the point of view and general writing style.

Structure and format: normally, we imagine a set of instructions as being formatted as vertical numbered lists. And most are in fact. Normally, you format your actual step-by-step instructions this way. There are some variations, however, as well as some other considerations:

Fixed-order steps are steps that must be performed in the order presented. For example, if you are changing the oil in a car, draining the oil is a step that must come before putting the new oil. These are numbered lists (usually, vertical numbered lists).
Variable-order steps are steps that can be performed in practically any order. Good examples are those troubleshooting guides that tell you to check this, check that where you are trying to fix something. You can do these kinds of steps in practically any order. With this type, the bulleted list is the appropriate format.
Alternate steps are those in which two or more ways to accomplish the same thing are presented. Alternate steps are also used when various conditions might exist. Use bulleted lists with this type, with OR inserted between the alternatives, or the lead-in indicating that alternatives are about to be presented.
Nested steps may be used in cases when individual steps within a procedure are rather complex in their own right and need to be broken down into sub-steps. In this case, you indent further and sequence the sub-steps as a, b, c, and so on.
“Step-less” instructions . can be used when you really cannot use numbered vertical list or provide straightforward instructional-style directing of the reader. Some situations must be so generalized or so variable that steps cannot be stated.

Supplementary discussion: often, it is not enough simply to tell readers to do this or to do that. They need additional explanatory information such as how the thing should look before and after the step; why they should care about doing this step; what mechanical principle is behind what they are doing; even more micro-level explanation of the step—discussion of the specific actions that make up the step.

The problem with supplementary discussion, however, is that it can hide the actual step. You want the actual step—the specific actions the reader is to take—to stand out. You don’t want it all buried in a heap of words. There are at least two techniques to avoid this problem: you can split the instruction from the supplement into separate paragraphs; or you can bold the instruction.

Writing Style

Placing the key user steps in bold can a very helpful way to signal clearly what the reader needs to do. Often the command verb is bolded; sometimes bold font highlights the key component being discussed.

Use of the passive voice in instructions can be problematic. For some strange reason, some instructions sound like this: “The Pause button should be depressed in order to stop the display temporarily.” Not only are we worried about the pause button’s mental health, but we wonder who’s supposed to depress the thing ( ninjas ?). It would be more helpful to indicate when the reader must “ press the Pause button.” Consider this example: “The Timer button is then set to 3:00.” Again, one might ask, “is set by whom? Ninjas ?” The person following these instructions might think it is simply a reference to some existing state, or she might wonder, “Are they talking to me?” Using the third person can also lead to awkwardness: “The user should then press the Pause button.” Instructions should typically be written using command verb forms and using “you” to make it perfectly clear what the reader should do.

Illustrating Your Instructions

Perhaps more than in any other form of technical writing, graphics are crucial to instructions. Sometimes, words simply cannot explain the step. Illustrations are often critical to the readers’ ability to visualize what they are supposed to do. Be sure that the graphics represent the image from the reader’s perspective.

Formatting Your Instructions

Since people rarely want to read instructions, but often have to, format your instructions for reluctant readability. Try to make your reader want to read them, or at least not resistant to the idea of consulting them. Highly readable format will allow readers who have figured out some of the instructions on their own to skip to the section where they are stuck. Use what you have learned about headings , lists , visuals , and passive space to create effective and readable instructions:

Headings : normally, you’d want headings for any background section you might have, the equipment and supplies section, a general heading for the actual instructions section, and subheadings for the individual tasks or phases within that section.

Lists : similarly, instructions typically make extensive use of lists, particularly numbered vertical lists for the actual step-by-step explanations. Simple vertical lists or two-column lists are usually good for the equipment and supplies section. In-sentence lists are good whenever you give an overview of things to come.

Special Notices : you may have to alert readers to possibilities in which they may damage their equipment, waste supplies, cause the entire procedure to fail, injure themselves or others—even seriously or fatally. Companies have been sued for lack of these special notices, for poorly written special notices, or for special notices that were out of place. See special notices for a complete discussion of the proper use of these special notices as well as their format and placement within instructions.

As you reread and revise your instructions, check that they do the following:

Clearly describe the exact procedure to be explained
Provide an overview of content
Indicate audience requirements
Use various types of lists wherever appropriate; in particular, use numbered lists for sequential steps
Use headings and subheadings to divide the main sections and subsections in a logical, coherent order
Use special notices as appropriate
Use graphics to illustrate key actions and objects
Provide additional supplementary explanation of the steps as necessary
Create a section listing equipment and supplies if necessary.

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How to Use English Grammar for Writing Instructions

An Introduction to Punctuation
Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York

In business writing , technical writing , and other forms of composition , instructions are written or spoken directions for carrying out a procedure or performing a task. It is also called instructive writing .

Step-by-step instructions typically use the second-person point of view ( you, your, yours ). Instructions are usually conveyed in the active voice and the imperative mood: Address your audience directly .

Instructions are often written in the form of a numbered list so that users can clearly recognize the sequence of the tasks.

Effective instructions commonly include visual elements (such as pictures, diagrams, and flowcharts) that illustrate and clarify the text . Instructions intended for an international audience may rely entirely on pictures and familiar symbols . (These are called wordless instructions .)

Observations and Examples

"Good instructions are unambiguous, understandable, complete, consistent, and efficient." (John M. Penrose, et al., Business Communication for Managers: An Advanced Approach , 5th ed. Thomson, 2004)

The Lighter Side of Instructions: Handbook for the Recently Deceased

Juno: Okay, have you been studying the manual? Adam: Well, we tried. Juno: The intermediate interface chapter on haunting says it all. Get them out yourselves. It's your house. Haunted houses aren't easy to come by. Barbara: Well, we don't quite get it. Juno: I heard. Tore your faces right off. It obviously doesn't do any good to pull your heads off in front of people if they can't see you. Adam: We should start more simply then? Juno: Start simply, do what you know, use your talents, practice. You should have been studying those lessons since day one. (Sylvia Sidney, Alec Baldwin, and Geena Davis in Beetlejuice , 1988)

Basic Features

"Instructions tend to follow a consistent step-by-step pattern, whether you are describing how to make coffee or how to assemble an automobile engine. Here are the basic features of instructions:

Specific and precise title
Introduction with background information
List of parts, tools, and conditions required
Sequentially ordered steps
Safety information
Conclusion that signals completion of task

Sequentially ordered steps are the centerpiece of a set of instructions, and they typically take up much of the space in the document." (Richard Johnson-Sheehan, Technical Communication Today . Pearson, 2005)

Checklist for Writing Instructions

Use short sentences and short paragraphs.
Arrange your points in logical order.
Make your statements specific .
Use the imperative mood .
Put the most important item in each sentence at the beginning.
Say one thing in each sentence.
Choose your words carefully, avoiding jargon and technical terms if you can.
Give an example or an analogy , if you think a statement may puzzle a reader.
Check your completed draft for logic of presentation.
Don't omit steps or take shortcuts.

(Adapted from Writing With Precision by Jefferson D. Bates. Penguin, 2000)

Helpful Hints

"Instructions can be either freestanding documents or part of another document. In either case, the most common error is to make them too complicated for the audience. Carefully consider the technical level of your readers. Use white space , graphics, and other design elements to make the instructions appealing. Most important, be sure to include Caution, Warning, and Danger references before the steps to which they apply." (William Sanborn Pfeiffer, Pocket Guide to Technical Communication , 4th ed. Pearson, 2007)

Testing Instructions

To evaluate the accuracy and clarity of a set of instructions, invite one or more individuals to follow your directions. Observe their progress to determine if all steps are completed correctly in a reasonable amount of time. Once the procedure has been completed, ask this test group to report on any problems they may have encountered and to offer recommendations for improving the instructions.

Graphics in Business Writing, Technical Communication
Technical Writing
How to Write a Great Process Essay
Gradual Release of Responsibility Creates Independent Learners
Heuristics in Rhetoric and Composition
What Are Business and Technical Reports?
How Scaffolding Instruction Can Improve Comprehension
7 Ways to Take Control of Your Classroom to Reduce Student Misbehavior
Paragraph Length in Compositions and Reports
How to Break in a New Baseball Glove
Definition and Examples of Progymnasmata in Rhetoric
Chaining Forward and Chaining Backwards
Understanding General-to-Specific Order in Composition
How to Write an Instructional Outline
C Programming Language for Beginners
C++ For Beginners: Learn about C++

Writing Instructions

One of the most common and important uses of technical writing is instructions—those step-by-step explanations of how to do things: assemble something, operate something, repair something, or explain a personal process (enrolling in college, for example) so that readers may better understand it and possibly use it themselves.

Process texts are extremely common in school and professions. In school, teachers frequently assign process assignments. For example, humanities professors may ask for a description of how an artistic or literary period evolved; history professors, the contributions of a culture’s leaders over time; social science professors, the chronology of inventions; engineering professors, explanations of how sound is changed into electrical signals; business professors, how the Federal Reserve works or how to sell a product.

On a daily basis, we read descriptive processes, including recipes, user manuals for new software, or advice columns on how to lose weight or how to succeed in school or a profession. These texts focus on answering one of the following questions:

“How is this done?”
“How can I do this?”

While the topics of a process report or a set of instructions may vary, many share similarities: most are written to explain how something works, most are structured in chronological order using numbered steps, and most rely extensively on visuals . In writing instructions for learning a new software program, for example, writers might use screenshots and/or screen videos to walk users through the tutorial.

Generally, it is good to have both text and visuals in your instructions since your audience is likely comprised of people with different learning styles. However, the use of visuals can vary depending on your audience and the intended use of the instructions. Visuals help to clarify a concept that is difficult to explain using only words. Graphics may be used to show how something looks, how something should look once the step has been completed, how something is done or constructed, show trends or relationships, add liveliness to the project, or simply help to organize information. Graphics are useful since almost everyone (including children and others of a different language) can understand visual instructions and see exactly what they need to complete.

Types of Instructions

There are three main types of process texts:

Descriptive processes : these answer the question, “How is this done?” These texts describe how a process occurs so that readers can understand it better. For example, writing a descriptive process about how you registered for a course online rather than in person might be useful to someone who has never done online registration.
Prescriptive processes : these are explanatory in nature; they prescribe how something is done (or should be done) so that readers can do it themselves. These are the most common type of instructional documents. For example, you might write a prescriptive process guide for users explaining how to perform basic maintenance on their cars, such as changing their own oil, checking spark plugs, or replacing brake pads. *The samples listed below are examples of prescriptive processes.
Blended descriptive and prescriptive processes make the main thrust of the document a descriptive process while having a few sections summarizing how the readers can perform the process. In other words, writers may address both “How can I do this?” and “How is this done?” in different parts of one text. Alternatively, they might develop different versions of the same document for two audiences–an audience of users and an audience of interested parties.

Getting Started

At the beginning of an instruction-writing project or assignment, it’s important to consider your audience and determine the characteristics (the number of tasks and steps) of the particular procedure you intend to write about.

Audience and situatio n: Early in the process, define the audience and situation of your instructions. Remember that defining an audience means defining its level of knowledge and familiarity with the topic. It is sometimes helpful to describe your audience to yourself first, and then use that to assess your message at the end to be certain it’s appropriate for your audience.

Number of tasks : An important consideration is how many tasks there are in the procedure for which you are writing instructions. The term procedure can be used to refer to the whole set of activities your instructions discuss, while task can be used to define a semi-independent group of actions within the procedure. For example, setting up your modem is one task in the overall procedure of connecting a computer to the internet.

As another example, a simple procedure like changing a car’s oil contains only one task; there are no semi-independent groupings of other activities. A more complex procedure, like using a microwave oven, contains plenty of semi-independent tasks, such as setting the clock, setting the power level, using the timer, cleaning and maintaining the microwave, and more.

Some instructions have only a single task but have many steps within that single task. For example, imagine a set of instructions for assembling a children’s swing set. One effective approach would be to group similar and related steps into phases , and then renumber the steps at each new phase. A phase is a group of similar steps within a single-task procedure. In the swing set example, setting up the frame would be one phase; anchoring the thing in the ground would be another; and assembling the box swing would be still another.

Focusing Instructions

Another consideration, which maybe you can’t determine early on, is how to focus your instructions. For most instructions, you can focus on the tasks involved , or you can focus on the tools needed .

In a task approach to instructions on using a phone-answering machine, you’d have sections on recording your greeting, playing back your messages, saving your messages, forwarding your messages, and deleting your messages. These are tasks—the typical things users would want to do with the machine.
On the other hand, in a tools approach to instructions on using a photocopier, there would be sections on the copy button, the cancel button, the enlarge/reduce button, the collate/staple button, the paper tray, the copy-size button, and so on. If you designed a set of instructions on this plan, you’d likely write steps for using each button or feature of the photocopier.

Instructions Content

Be sure to read the section on “ Document Design ” before creating your instructions. Include the following items:

Introduction : In carefully planning your instructions’ introduction, be sure to:

Indicate the specific tasks or procedure to be explained.
Indicate what the audience needs in terms of knowledge and background to understand the instructions.
Give a general idea of the procedure and what it accomplishes.
Indicate the conditions when these instructions should (or should not) be used.
Give an overview of the contents of the instructions.

General warning, caution, danger notice s: Instructions must also alert readers to the possibility of ruining their equipment, screwing up the procedure, and/or hurting themselves. Also, instructions must emphasize key points or exceptions. For these situations, you should use special notices , such as Note , Warning , Caution , and/or Danger .

Technical background or theory: At the beginning of some instructions (usually after the introduction), you may need a discussion of background related to the procedure. For certain instructions, this background is critical—otherwise, the steps in the procedure make no sense. In some cases, writers of instructions may need to spend significant time explaining things to readers before moving on to the actual steps involved in the process.

Equipment and supplies : Most instructions include a list of the things you need to gather before you start the procedure. This includes equipment , the tools you use in the procedure (such as mixing bowls, spoons, bread pans, hammers, drills, and saws) and supplies , the things that are consumed in the procedure (such as wood, paint, oil, flour, and nails). In instructions, these are typically listed either in a simple vertical list or in a two-column list at the start of the instructions. Use the two-column list if you need to add specifications to some or all of the items—for example, brand names, sizes, amounts, types, model numbers, and so on.

Discussion of the steps : When you get to the actual writing of the steps be certain to carefully consider the structure and format of those steps, any supplementary information that might be needed, and the point of view and general writing style of the instructions. One point of view used in technical writing is the second person, which is addressing the audience as you .

*Generally speaking, writers of instructions should strive to do the following:

Use clear, simple writing whenever possible.
Have a thorough understanding of the process in all its technical detail.
Work toward putting yourself in the place of the reader who will be using your instructions.

Student instruction samples

Welding Instructions Sample (student sample)
Mechatronics Instructions Sample – Testing Diodes & Transistors (student sample)
Auto/Diesel Instructions – How to Replace A Rear Sway Bar on A Toyota Corolla (student sample)
Assembling A PC (student sample)
How to Change Guitar Strings (student sample)

Professional instruction samples

Welding Instructions Sample 1 (professional sample)
Barbie Dreamhouse (professional sample)
Trampoline Assembly (professional sample)

Additional Resources

“ Writing Instructions , ” Technical Writing Essentials
“ Instructions ” Online Technical Writing

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7. COMMON DOCUMENT TYPES

An effective set of instruction requires the following:

Clear, precise, and simple writing
A thorough understanding of the procedure in all its technical detail
The ability to put yourself in the place of the reader, the person trying to use your instructions
The ability to visualize the procedure in detail and to capture that awareness on paper
Willingness to test your instructions on the kind of person you wrote them for.

Preliminary Steps

1. Do a careful audience and task analysis

Early in the process, define the audience and situation of your instructions. Remember that defining an audience means defining the level of familiarity your readers have with the topic.

2. Determine the number of tasks

3. Determine the best approach to the step-by-step discussion

Recording your greeting
Playing back your messages
Saving your messages
Forwarding your messages
Deleting your messages, and so on

These are tasks—the typical things we’d want to do with the machine.

On the other hand, in a tools approach to instructions on using a photocopier, there likely would be sections on how to use specific features:

Copy button
Cancel button
Enlarge/reduce button
Collate/staple button
Copy-size button, and so on

4. Design groupings of tasks

Unpacking and setup tasks
Installing and customizing tasks
Basic operating tasks
Routine maintenance tasks
Troubleshooting tasks.

Common Sections in Instructions

For alternative formats, check out the example instructions .

Introduction: plan the introduction to your instructions carefully. It might include any of the following (but not necessarily in this order):

Indicate the specific tasks or procedure to be explained as well as the scope (what will and will not be covered)
Indicate what the audience needs in terms of knowledge and background to understand the instructions
Give a general idea of the procedure and what it accomplishes
Indicate the conditions when these instructions should (or should not) be used
Give an overview of the contents of the instructions.

Fixed-order steps are steps that must be performed in the order presented. For example, if you are changing the oil in a car, draining the oil is a step that must come before putting the new oil. These are numbered lists (usually, vertical numbered lists).
Variable-order steps are steps that can be performed in practically any order. Good examples are those troubleshooting guides that tell you to check this, check that where you are trying to fix something. You can do these kinds of steps in practically any order. With this type, the bulleted list is the appropriate format.
Alternate steps are those in which two or more ways to accomplish the same thing are presented. Alternate steps are also used when various conditions might exist. Use bulleted lists with this type, with OR inserted between the alternatives, or the lead-in indicating that alternatives are about to be presented.
Nested steps may be used in cases when individual steps within a procedure are rather complex in their own right and need to be broken down into sub-steps. In this case, you indent further and sequence the sub-steps as a, b, c, and so on.
“Step-less” instructions . can be used when you really cannot use numbered vertical list or provide straightforward instructional-style directing of the reader. Some situations must be so generalized or so variable that steps cannot be stated.

Writing Style

Illustrating Your Instructions

Formatting Your Instructions

As you reread and revise your instructions, check that they do the following:

Clearly describe the exact procedure to be explained
Provide an overview of content
Indicate audience requirements
Use various types of lists wherever appropriate; in particular, use numbered lists for sequential steps
Use headings and subheadings to divide the main sections and subsections in a logical, coherent order
Use special notices as appropriate
Use graphics to illustrate key actions and objects
Provide additional supplementary explanation of the steps as necessary
Create a section listing equipment and supplies if necessary.

Technical Writing Essentials Copyright © by Suzan Last and UNH College of Professional Studies Online is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Types of Technical Documents

Instructions.

Instructions—those step-by-step explanations of how to build, operate, repair, or maintain things—are one of the most common and important types of technical writing. However, for something seemingly so easy and intuitive, instructions are some of the worst-written documents you can find. You’ve probably had many infuriating experiences with badly written instructions. Hopefully, the information on this page will help you write good ones.

Good instructions require:

Clear, concise writing
A thorough understanding of the procedure in all its technical detail
Ability to put yourself in the place of the reader, the person trying to use your instructions
Ability to visualize the procedure in great detail and to capture that awareness on paper
Willingness to test your instructions on the kind of person you wrote them for

Instructions incorporate items such as chronological organization, headings, lists, and special notices. However, you need to plan carefully before you apply these format items, in order to write effective, usable instructions.

Preparing to Write Instructions

Good instructions begin with good preparation, which involves audience, type, organizational approach, and task analysis.

Analyze your Audience

Early in the process, define the audience and situation of your instructions. Remember that defining an audience means defining its level of familiarity with the topic as well as other details, including age and ability level.

Analyze your Organizational Approach – Tasks or Tools

Instructions can be organized by tasks or tools.

A task approach deals with the things the user needs to do. For example, the process of finding free images for a technical document might involve the following tasks: research sites with creative commons licenses, review the sites and prioritize them according to size of database and ease of use, choose one site, identify key words that explain the concept you want to illustrate, etc.

A tools approach focuses on the things with which a user needs to interact. For example, the process of using a photocopy machine would involve writing steps for using each of its tools: cancel button, enlarge/reduce button, collate/staple button, etc. Instructions using this approach are hard to make work. Sometimes, the name of the button doesn’t quite match the task it is associated with; sometimes you have to use more than just the one button to accomplish the task. Still, there can be times when the tools/feature approach may be useful, depending on your audience analysis and your objective in writing the instructions.

Analyze the Procedure’s Tasks

Since most instructions are task-based, doing a task analysis is a key preliminary step in writing instructions. It’s important to determine the steps in the process or procedure you’re going to write about. Particularly in technical instructions, your understanding of the procedure could make the difference between success and failure, or at more complex levels, life and death.

A thorough task analysis involves studying how users use the product or do the task, interviewing them, and watching them. It can also mean interviewing marketing, product development, and help desk professionals. However, sometimes you may not be able to do a thorough task analysis. Typically, product developers don’t think about documentation until rather late, and it may be difficult to get marketing, development, engineering, and programming professionals to spend enough time with you to explain the product thoroughly. So you need to try the procedure yourself, if possible, and understand that you may end up doing a certain amount of educated guesswork. The developer is more likely to review your draft and let you know if your guesswork is right.

1. Identify one or many tasks

Examine the overall procedure you are describing to determine the number of instructional tasks. A task is an independent group of actions within the procedure. For example, setting the clock on a microwave oven is one task in the overall procedure of operating a microwave oven (which would include other tasks such as setting the clock, setting the power level, using the timer, cleaning and maintaining the microwave).

A simple procedure such as changing the oil in a car contains only one task; there are no independent groupings of activities. Within that task are a number of steps, such as removing the plug, draining the old oil, replacing the filter, and adding the new oil, which all contribute to the one task of changing the oil. However, you may be writing instructions for a complex procedure, which involves several independent tasks within the overall procedure. For example, if you were writing instructions for maintaining a car on your own, you’d have the following independent tasks in your instruction booklet: changing the oil, rotating the tires, checking the fluids, replacing the windshield wiper blades, and so on.

Task analysis can be complex; see a Sample Task Analysis to understand the precision and detail involved.

2. Identify the steps within each task

Once you have identified tasks, identify the steps within each task. As you can see, you “drill down” during the task analysis preliminary phase, to examine all aspects of the procedure in depth, so as not to miss anything critical to a user who actually needs to follow the instructions.

3. Group tasks logically

Finally, decide how to group tasks within a complex procedure. For example, the following are common task groupings in instructions:

unpacking and setup tasks
installing and customizing tasks
basic operating tasks
routine maintenance tasks
troubleshooting tasks

Writing Instructions

Although explaining the tasks that you identify in a task analysis provides the bulk of the content for instructions, there are more pieces to formal instructions and more considerations, such as visuals, that you need to deal with when you write. Instructions contain the following parts, often in the following order. Note that inclusion of these items, as well as their order, may vary, depending on the instructions’ content, purpose, and audience.

The title for instructions should be precise and concise. Opt for “how to” or an “-ing” phrase, such as “How to Clean your Microwave” or “Maintaining Your Apple iPhone.”

With technical instructions, the date is crucial. The date enables the reader to be certain that these instructions are the most current, and if they are not, where the instructions belong in the line of documents related to this product or procedure.

A table of contents is optional. Use one if your instructions consist of multiple tasks or have multiple sections, or if they are being presented in the form of a manual.

Introduction

Plan the introduction to your instructions carefully. Make sure it does any of the following things as appropriate, in whatever order is appropriate for your purpose and audience:

Provide a general idea of the procedure and what it accomplishes.
Indicate the scope of coverage—what the instructions will and will not cover.
Indicate what the audience needs in terms of knowledge and background to understand the instructions.
If this is a lengthy set of instructions, indicate how much time a user may need to complete the task or procedure.
Indicate the conditions when these instructions should (or should not) be used.

Preliminary Notes & Warning Notices

Although notes and warning notices should occur in the specific steps themselves, you may need to emphasize notes and warnings earlier in the instructions, especially if there is a possibility of readers ruining their equipment, wasting supplies, causing the entire procedure to fail, and/or hurting themselves. It’s fine to put important notes and warnings in two places within the instructions. Companies have been sued for lack of these special notices, for poorly written special notices, or for special notices that were out of place.

Technical Background or Theory

You may need to discuss background and/or theory in the preliminary material for certain kinds of instructions, so that the steps in the procedure make sense to your reader. This is a place to include technical definitions or descriptions if needed.

Equipment and Supplies

Notice that most instructions include a list of the things you need to gather before you start the procedure. This includes equipment, the tools you use in the procedure, and supplies (things that are consumed in the procedure such as wood, paint, or nails). Note that you may need to specify some or all of the items, with brand names, sizes, amounts, types, model numbers, and so on.

Discussion of the Steps

The following schematic shows some of the initial sections and the discussion of the steps in instructions.

When you get to the actual writing of the steps, there are several things to keep in mind:

structure and format of the steps
supplemental information that might be needed
point of view and general writing style

1. Structure and Format of the Steps

Most instructions number the tasks and steps chronologically. But there are many methods of structuring and formatting instructions, depending on your content and purpose.

Fixed-order steps must be performed in the order presented. For example, if you are changing the oil in a car, draining the oil is a step that must come before putting in the new oil. Use numbered lists for fixed-order steps. When in doubt, structure your instructions in this format. You may then use notes to indicate if there is any leeway to perform the steps in another sequence.
Variable-order steps can be performed in practically any order. Good examples are those troubleshooting guides that tell you to “check this, check that” when you are trying to fix something. Since a particular sequence is not relevant, use a bulleted list for variable-order steps.
Alternate steps offer two or more ways to accomplish the same thing, or different ways to proceed when different conditions exist. Use bulleted lists with alternate steps, with “OR” inserted between the alternatives. Or you can use a lead-in sentence that indicates that alternatives are about to be presented.
Nested steps are those in which individual steps within a procedure need to be broken down into sub-steps. In this case, number the main steps and then indent further and sequence the sub-steps as a, b, c, and so on.

2. Supplemental Information/Glosses

Often, it is not enough simply to tell readers what to do. They need additional explanatory information such as how the thing should look before and after the step, why they should care about doing this step, what mechanical principle is behind what they are doing, or even more micro-level explanation of the step. This is where supplemental information, often called a gloss, becomes important. (You know the word “glossary,” which is a set of explanations of various terms. A “gloss” is a single, brief explanation.)

The problem with supplemental information, though, is that it can hide the actual step. You want the actual step—the specific actions the reader is to take—to stand out. There are at least two techniques to avoid this problem: you can split the supplement into a separate paragraph nested under the instruction, or you can bold the instruction.

sample supplemental information/glosses in instructions

When changing engine oil, always check the owner’s manual to find the correct amount and type of oil and filter needed.

Start the vehicle and allow the engine to warm up for a minute. This allows the existing oil in the engine to warm up so that it drains out very smoothly.
Locate the oil pan drain plug and remove the plug for draining. Removing the fill cap and pulling the oil dipstick will allow good flow for the oil while draining. If there is more than one plug, drain the oil from both plugs into a container.

Illustrations are often critical to readers’ ability to visualize what they are supposed to do. Consider the example of car repair manuals which actually use photographs to illustrate procedures, or screen shots that demonstrate the process of using software. Most instructions rely on visuals. Generally, it is good to have both text and visuals in your instructions since your audience is likely comprised of people with different learning styles.

Visuals help clarify a concept that’s difficult to explain using only words. They may be used to show how something looks unassembled, how something is constructed, and how something should look once the steps have been completed. Graphics are useful since almost everyone can understand visual instructions and see exactly what they need to complete. Just be sure that the graphics you choose are appropriate and placed in close proximity to the steps they illustrate. Don’t make your audience flip pages to see the accompanying graphic.

See a sample of screen shot visuals incorporated into a simple set of instructions on How to Make a Checklist in D2L . (Desire to Learn, D2L, is a learning management system. The checklist function helps students know what tasks need to be completed within a course module.)

4. Point of View and General Writing Style

Instructions use commands, action verbs, and “you” orientation. For example, “Advance the Timer button to 4.” This approach immediately clarifies the action that the user should perform. Do not use passive voice in instructions, e.g., “The Timer button is then set to 4.” With the passive voice example, a reader may misunderstand and think that the Timer button will automatically go to 4, as opposed to understanding that they have to advance the Timer themselves.

Another of the typical problems with writing style in instructions is that writers often leave out articles (a, an, the). For example, “Press Pause button on front panel to stop display of information temporarily.” Write as you would normally write a sentence, including articles.

Don’t end the instructions with the last step. A conclusion can offer a general insight, trouble shooting information (i.e. what to do if something went wrong), and/or contact information. Include whatever is appropriate to the instructions.

Other Back Matter

You may include, as appropriate, a list of references, glossary, appendix, index, or technical specifications. Back matter items provide additional information that non-technical audiences, or audiences without specific background, may need to understand how to complete the procedure.

Final Thoughts about Instructions

As a technical or workplace writer, your ability to write good instructions carries a number of ethical implications. Keep in mind that poorly or carelessly designed instructions leave you or your company liable for damages. They also destroy your credibility and authority. Before you submit any instructions for final review, be sure you get feedback from others. For small or routine procedures, it may be enough to have a coworker review them, but more complex instructions should always be tested for usability

Instructions, adapted from Online Technical Communication, Technical Writing Essentials, and Technical Writing for Technicians; attributions below. Authored by : Susan Oaks. Provided by : Empire State College, SUNY. Project : Technical Writing. License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
Instructions (pages 1-4 of 5). Authored by : David McMurrey & Cassandra Race. Provided by : Kennesaw State University. Located at : https://softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/Ds4qR8ZHANKM7E/html . Project : Open Technical Communication. License : CC BY: Attribution
Task Analysis. Authored by : David McMurrey & Tamara Powell. Provided by : Kennesaw State University. Located at : https://softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/OueEigLfnGbo8l/html . Project : Open Technical Communication. License : CC BY: Attribution
7.7 Writing Instructions. Authored by : Suzan Last. Provided by : University of Victoria. Located at : https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/technicalwriting/chapter/writinginstructions/ . Project : Technical Writing Essentials. License : CC BY: Attribution
Writing Instructions. Authored by : Will Fleming. Provided by : LBCC. Located at : https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/ctetechwriting/chapter/chapter-5-writing-instructions/ . Project : Technical Writing for Technicians. License : CC BY: Attribution
image of wordle with the word Instructions. Authored by : Wokandapix. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/education-instruction-school-learn-614155/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
image of person doing a task analysis. Authored by : RAEng_Publications. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/engineer-engineering-4922775/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
image of person writing at a white board. Authored by : RAEng_Publications. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/engineer-engineering-software-4904883/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
image of person with an illustration on a computer screen. Authored by : RAEng_Publications. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/engineer-engineering-mechanical-4915799/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved

Instructional Writing Methods: How to Write Instructions Lesson Plan

Trent Lorcher
Categories : High school english lesson plans grades 9 12
Tags : High school lesson plans & tips

How to Write Instructions Introduction

Writing lesson plans often focus on academic writing. Everyday writing, however, is far more useful. As part of your writing curriculum, include assignments that requires students to write instructions. Begin by teaching students how to write instructions, the most important of instructional writing methods.

An instructional writer must know his or her subject thoroughly, use appropriate and consistent word choice, use the active voice, use the imperative mood, include formatting clues, and limit first person usage. Most importantly, the writer needs to be clear and concise.

Beginning with a Purpose and Audience

Remember as you teach how to write instructions and instructional writing methods that the purpose is to inform.

The introduction should be very brief and should provide enough background information for the reader to determine whether or not the article will satisfy his or her need. The introduction is the only appropriate place for creativity.
Keep it simple. Your reader doesn’t care about how much you know, where you learned your information, who your paternal grandfather dated in the 8th grade, or what color underwear you have on. They are reading your article for a specific reason. Avoid vague words or technical jargon. If a technical term must be used, be sure to define it the first time you use it.
Re member your audience . If the reader were an expert, he or she wouldn’t need your instructions. No matter how clear you think you are, somebody will misinterpret the directions. Pictures are helpful.

Instructional Writing Methods: The Body

When learning or teaching how to write instructions, remember the purpose is to give instructions.

The most important section of an instructional article is the instructions. Your article should follow a natural progression of steps, broken into small parts for easy comprehension. Numbered and bulleted lists along with strategic spacing make articles easier to understand. If the order of steps does not matter, use bullets. If the order does matter, use numbers
Show clearly who does what if multiple parties are involved. Begin each instruction with an imperative verb. Don’t mix background information with instructional tasks. Be specific on what the reader should do after completing each task.

Instructional Writing Methods: Revise and Test

Make sure instructions are clear!

Conduct an experiment before completing your final draft: find volunteers to read your instructions and implement them; observe; take note of any problem; revise and repeat until satisfied with the results.

This post is part of the series: Writing Assignments

Find different writing assignments to give your students.

Writing Lesson Plans: How to Write a Biography
Teach Your Students How to Write Science Fiction
Teaching Instructional Articles: How to Write Instructions
Lesson Plan: How to Write an Essay Introduction
Sophmores Assess Their High School Role While You Assess Their Writing

Instruction Writing

Improve your child's instruction writing skills.

Writing clear instructions is a skill your child will have to develop early in their academic life as it will be required throughout high school and beyond, into their professional life as an adult. This writing style has specific characteristics that ensure readers are able to follow and understand what they are being told to do.

Types of instruction writing include:

Step-by-step guides
Instruction manuals
Cooking recipes
Travel guides

Learning about instruction writing will also improve your child’s explanation writing skills, as it requires attention to detail, critical thinking and a logical sequence of events to ensure the reader is able to follow these directions.

Writing instructions can also help children understand the importance of clarity in writing and teach them how to use adverbs or adjectives to add relevant context and helpful advice.

We’re here to help your child writer master the art of instruction writing! This page includes guidance from education experts on how you can teach writing instructions to your child, including free worksheets for them to practice.

What is instruction writing?

When writing instructions, your child will need to have attention to detail and knowledge of what they’re explaining, to ensure that the reader can successfully follow their directions.

Instructions are written for all kinds of activities, from cooking, to DIY, to gaming! Explicit instructions are needed to ensure that the reader is able to successfully follow each step until they finalize the product, dish, or project being worked on.

At elementary/primary school level, children should focus on making instructions factual and impartial, to ensure they are writing clear, explicit instructions.

How to write a good set of instructions

In order for your child to write a good set of instructions, they need to include a variety of details that are easy to understand and follow. Here's a list of "instructions" for your child to follow during the instruction writing process:

Start all instruction writing pieces with a clear title and brief introduction.
List the equipment/materials the reader will need underneath the title.
Order each instruction, step by step, using numbers.
Ensure that each step follows a logical sequence.
Technical writing may be needed.
Use action words (verbs) to tell the reader what to do.
Use describing words (adverbs) to explain how things should be done in detail.
Ensure your child is revising their work as they write each instruction.

Example of a good set of instructions

Looking for further guidance? Use this example to help your child apply the rules above to their own writing:

How to Build a Snowman

6 small rocks
Push your snow into a pile.
Roll your pile of snow into a ball.
Make a second, smaller ball.
Carefully place the smaller ball on top of the larger ball.
Decorate using the carrot for a nose, the sticks for arms, and the rocks for the eyes and mouth.

Activity & resource

Now that we’ve reviewed what instructions are, talked about what’s necessary to make a good set of instructions, and provided you with an example, it’s time for your child to have a go! The template below will transform your young learner into an instruction writing master! It includes an example, prompts, and sentence starters to guide your child.

How Night Zookeeper can help

Night Zookeeper is the perfect resource for your child to develop and practice their knowledge of different writing styles! Our reading & writing program for kids can be used by homeschoolers, teachers, or as a supplemental learning resource to improve your child’s writing skills.

Our program uses gamification to teach writing in a fantastically fun way, and includes thousands of high-quality writing activities and resources, such as interactive lessons, word games, reading comprehension challenges, and much more!

All student writing submitted is also graded by our team of tutors, who provide encouraging comments and feedback to support your child’s progress!

More resources

Story Writing
Report Writing
Opinion Writing
Persuasive Writing
Explanation Writing

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Blog Human Resources Writing a Work Instruction: A Complete Guide

Writing a Work Instruction: A Complete Guide

Written by: Letícia Fonseca Apr 21, 2022

With clear, concise, and coherent work instructions, you can guide workers’ training, performance, and assessment, maintain quality standards and improve efficiency in the workplace.

In this guide, we will dive deep into the definition of a work instruction, its purpose and benefits, and how it should be written.

Then, using Venngage for Training & Development , you will be able to create actionable and detailed work instructions that will benefit both workers and the company.

Click to jump ahead:

What is a work instruction?

Why are work instructions important, work instruction examples, what should be included in a work instruction.

How to write work instructions in 8 steps

FAQs about work instructions

A work instruction is a written document that provides clear and precise steps to carry out a single instruction.

As an example, this work instruction outlines the specific steps on how to file and approve an employee expense claim:

Work instructions describe the correct way to perform a certain task or activity. Each task is part of a larger process, so every step must be followed accordingly in order for the task to be performed properly, otherwise it will affect other aspects of the business.

Work instructions are sometimes called work guides, job aids , or standard operating procedures . However, work instructions actually differ from the three.

A work instruction is more detailed than a standard operating procedure and it is mandatory, unlike a work guide. Meanwhile, work instructions are just a category under job aids.

Work instructions are vital to a company’s success as they help sustain and support processes that make up the day-to-day activities of a business.

What is the purpose of a work instruction?

By creating work instructions, employers ensure that the best way of doing a specific task is clearly communicated, understood, and implemented.

This guarantees a consistent outcome out of common tasks or projects, no matter who the task owner is. That way, business processes and operations will continue to run smoothly.

What are the benefits of a work instruction?

Work instructions enable companies to keep refining and streamlining their processes. Aside from that, here are other benefits of work instructions:

They help reduce risk and prevent errors or accidents. Most work instructions are prepared after multiple refinements, which means that they can establish the safest way to do a job correctly.
They save time in the long run. Work instructions help train employees thoroughly so there’s less chance of them wasting time correcting mistakes later on.
They facilitate the continuous improvement of processes and systems so workers can do their jobs better over time.
By providing a reference for correct and ideal scenarios, work instructions help with workers’ problem-solving skills and serve as a guide for how workers can execute corrective actions.

Here’s an example of how a work instruction is used to streamline the process of onboarding new employees:

Not sure what your work instruction document should look like? Here are some examples to get you started.

For any task that’s done frequently especially, work instructions are a game-changer. They ensure consistency and minimize errors, especially when dealing with new hires or covering for absent staff.

Take customer service roles for example, work instructions ensure that customer service reps follow consistent procedures when handling inquiries and resolving issues. This reduces call times, increases the number of customers served and frees up time for complex situations.

In some industries, specific regulations or standards need to be followed. Work instructions help guarantee that employees are fulfilling these requirements consistently.

This applies to tasks in healthcare, finance or any field with strict legal or ethical guidelines like this work instruction on healthcare accessibility:

Now that you have a better understanding of work instructions, let’s talk about what information they typically include. This will help you build your own clear and effective guides.

The structure and content of work instructions vary depending on the job. However, most work instructions consist of these essential parts:

Title and short description of the task
Objectives or expected results
Purpose of the task
Scope of the task
Tools or skills required
Safety requirements
Step-by-step instructions for the task
Expected outcome for each step

Here’s an example of a work instruction to help employees learn to use Google Meet:

8 steps for writing an actionable and clear work instruction

Creating a work instruction can be a bit overwhelming especially when there are multiple, detailed steps that need to be dissected. Don’t worry; by following these easy steps, you will be able to write work instructions without any trouble.

Step 1: Choose a task or job for the work instruction

Before anything else, define which task you’re going to write the work instruction for and make sure that you know the exact steps on how to do it. This will give you an idea of what tools, materials, or references you will need for creating the work instruction.

Step 2: Choose a tool for creating your work instruction

Now, decide on a tool you will use to create a work instruction. It should provide you with the easiest way to format and edit your work.

Also, choose a medium that will be the most accessible to users. In this case, the best option is going paperless because a digital file can be accessed anywhere, anytime.

Venngage for Training & Development teams offers flexible and user-friendly features to help you create graphical work instructions even without any design experience. You can then conveniently download your work in different file formats or directly share with workers online.

Create your work instructions with Venngage

Step 3: Write a clear title and introduction

To proceed with writing, first give a background of the process that the task is part of. Then, briefly explain the purpose of the task and the output required from it. Identify who is responsible for carrying out the task, which in this case is the worker.

As for the title, it must refer to the task or job itself. For example, in this template, the title is ‘Responding to a Negative Customer Review:’

Step 4: Break down the task into steps

Next, define the steps needed to complete the task and describe each extensively. List the materials that will be used for each step as well. One step is equivalent to one action, so if there is more than one action involved, it means another step is required.

If there are more than 10 steps, subdivide them into different topics, like in this example:

Step 5: Enhance the steps

Once you have enumerated all the steps for the task, add images, graphics, icons, or illustrations to support the information you have provided and to better demonstrate each step.

Visual materials can not only capture attention, but they can also enhance learning, so including powerful visuals in your work instruction can help the reader absorb information better.

With Venngage, you can choose from thousands of graphic templates that you can easily customize. Using the smart editor, you can integrate images, colors, and backgrounds into your design with just a few clicks.

As an example, here is a template that effectively uses graphics to demonstrate the step-by-step procedure of navigating an employee management system:

Step 6: Format your work instruction

After building and fleshing out the content, it’s time to work on the format. Be consistent and follow the same format throughout the entire document. If you start with middle alignment, then the rest of the text should be aligned at the center.

Make sure that the steps are displayed in a logical sequence, ideally in numerical order.

Emphasize important information by bolding, italicizing, or using a different font color. Increase the font size for titles and headings for better distinction between sections.

This template is a great example that applies all of the above:

Instruction Customer Onboarding Process Work Instruction

Step 7: Proofread and simplify the document

At this point, your work instruction might as well be complete. However, you still need to proofread to catch any mistakes or gaps and simplify to trim down any unnecessary details and clarify ambiguous information.

Replace complicated and multisyllabic words with short and simple ones for better comprehension and readability. Keep sentences under 15 words.

If you shall use specific or technical terminologies, they should be defined within the document. You should also stick with a single term when describing similar things.

For instance, this example uses bullet points and sentence fragments instead of complete sentences to make the document more readable:

Step 8: Test the work instruction

By now, your work instruction is finalized. All that’s left to do is to test the working document.

Testing is required to make sure that the work instruction is easy to understand and follow. To do that, have someone perform the task by following the work instruction you have created.

If they found that some parts needed further explanation or clarification, then you need to adjust and revise the document.

But if they were able to follow each step without any difficulty and were able to achieve the specified outcome at the end of the task, it means your work instruction is successful.

What is the difference between processes, procedures, and work instructions?

A process is a series of activities or events from which an output is produced. For example, a recruitment process leads to the employment of a new staff member.

A procedure, on the other hand, outlines how to perform a process. Let’s say in a recruitment process, sourcing, prepping, and converting applicants are some of the activities involved. These activities are outlined in a procedure.

Meanwhile, work instructions detail how an activity within a process is performed. Following the same example, it means the recruitment process may require a work instruction with steps on how to source an applicant, another on how to prep an applicant, and so on.

Processes, procedures, and work instructions are all part of a quality management system. Quality management systems are formalized systems that document business processes with the goal of enhancing customer satisfaction.

What is a standard work instruction?

A standardized work instruction explains how to carry out a procedure and turn it into an action plan through step-by-step guidelines. It is different from a standard operating procedure that provides a guide for what actions to take to fulfill a process.

In conclusion: Writing work instructions can help standardize and improve business processes.

Work instructions ensure that tasks are accurately and efficiently accomplished, therefore preserving quality and continuity in business processes. Use Venngage for Training & Development to create your company’s work instructions easily and more creatively.

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KS1 / KS2 English: How to write clear instructions

BBC Teach > Primary Resources > KS1 English / KS2 English > The Facts About Non-Fiction

Video summary

Stefan Gates demonstrates the process of instructional writing using a cake recipe.

He talks through the key features of instructional writing including using the correct technical terms, simple precise language, and imperative or bossy verbs.

This short film is from the BBC series, The Facts About Non-Fiction.

Teacher Notes

Key Stage 1

Ask pupils to identify how well Stefan writes his recipe. Does he use the correct language? How do you know?

After he has made his cake, why does he change some of the instructions?

Your pupils could follow Stefan’s recipe and make the cake together in class.

Key Stage 2

Ask your pupils to recall the key features of instructional writing and write down as many as they can remember in groups.

Watch the short film together and ask pupils to check their lists against the key features outlined by Stefan.

Ask them how well they think Stefan did. Could he have added any other sections to improve his instructions or final cake? What about a section exploring decorating the cake in different ways?

Pupils could write a survival guide to demonstrate their understanding of chronological order and imperative verbs.

Survival guides could be linked to pupils’ learning, for example: ‘How to survive in the Amazon/ Antarctic/ Space/ the 1960s/ without water.’

The survival guide could be related to a text pupils are reading too, ‘How to survive the wrath of Macbeth'.

This short film will be relevant for teaching English at KS1 and KS2 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 1st and 2nd Level in Scotland.

More from The Facts About Non-Fiction:

How to write a persuasive text

Actors Shannon Flynn and Richard Wisker talk about using emotive language, the difference between facts and opinions, and how to use evidence to support persuasive writing.

How to write a discussion text

Newsround presenter Leah Boleto explains how discursive writing requires an understanding of the difference between facts and opinions, and how to use connecting phrases and statistics.

How to write a recount

Michael Rosen explains how writing a recount requires an understanding of chronological order or sequencing, and how to structure a piece of writing.

How to write a non-chronological report

BBC journalist Sonali Shah explains how writing non-chronological reports requires an understanding of the planning, writing and drafting process.

How to write an explanation

Chris Packham explains how writing an explanation requires an understanding of chronological order or sequencing, how to use technical language and how to write succinctly.

How to Write an Instruction Manual [With Examples]

Last Updated

August 20 2022

If you’re looking to provide better support to your users, creating instruction manuals for your products should be one of your top priorities.

The fact is, your customers just aren’t going to stick around if they don’t know how to use your products. As Wyzowl recently found, 80% of users delete apps or software if they don’t know how to use them — and 55% of consumers will return a product or request a refund for similar reasons.

To be sure, you’re probably pretty familiar with instruction manuals, even if only from the consumer side.

But writing an effective user manual requires more than just typing up a few step-by-step instructions and calling it a day. If anything, this haphazard approach will likely cause more harm than good to your user’s experience with your products — and with your brand.

So, we’re going to dive deep into everything you need to know about writing user instruction manuals for your products.

What is an Instruction Manual?

An instruction manual is a document that explains how to use a product or service.

Instruction manuals are often referred to by many different names, including:

User manuals
Product manuals
Product instruction manuals

…and other such variations.

An instruction manual is meant to be a comprehensive resource for anything there is to know about a given product. The main purpose of the document is to make clear to customers how to use the product to its maximum potential.

(As we’ll discuss, an effective instruction manual will do much more than that.)

What Information Do Instruction Manuals Include?

While all instruction manuals are unique in many ways, they all typically include the following content and information.

Product Identification Info

All instruction manuals should specify with clarity what product it’s referring to.

The key pieces of info to include here:

Product name
Model number
Product series’ name (if applicable)

This is especially important for teams that offer multiple versions of products with slight variations between each.

Product Specifications and Description

Your instruction manual should include key information about the product, such as:

Product dimensions
Product features and functions Product materials and production info

Product specification from TCL's instruction manual

Usage Instructions

What would an instruction manual be without instructions?

Here, you’ll break down the step-by-step instructions for using your product. Typically, you’ll break this down further to detail specific product features — making sure to prioritize those central to the product’s core usage.

You’ll want to include instructions for your product’s optional and/or advanced features, as well.

Finally, troubleshooting info can help your users get out of a jam — and back on the path toward success.

Glossary of Terms

A glossary is essential to explain and/or clarify the meaning of certain words, terms, and other jargon related to your products.

As shown above, you may also include acronyms within your glossary — or create a separate glossary specifically for the acronyms used throughout your instruction manual.

Troubleshooting Info and FAQ

Even with proper instruction, your users will likely still run into trouble from time to time.

At the very least, they’re going to have questions about certain features, processes, or product use cases.

At any rate, including troubleshooting information will all but ensure your users can continue making progress even when things don’t go exactly according to plan.

Safety Precautions

Depending on the situation, providing clear safety information within your instruction manuals could literally save lives.

Even if there’s no physical risk in using your product, it’s important that your user manuals are completely transparent in this regard.

This may mean communicating how to:

Prepare or store a product to protect quality and functionality
Safely log in and out of digital accounts
Dispose of products after use

…or anything else the user needs to know to stay safe while using your product. Your manuals should include clear instructions as for what users should do, who to contact, etc. when facing emergency situations.

Policies and Terms of Use

Be sure to include information regarding usage terms of your product, along with standards for quality assurance.

This can help clarify any confusion around purchases, returns, exchanges, or any other request your users may have after buying your product. Similarly, warranty info can make clear what your responsibilities are should the product fail at any time.

Table of Contents and Index

Lastly, your instruction manuals should feature a table of context and an index to help users navigate the document.

Incidentally, these features will also give you an overview of the document — and help you ensure you’ve covered the topics you’d wanted to within each instruction manual you create.

The Benefits of Creating Product Instruction Manuals

On the surface, the answer to this question seems pretty straightforward.

But an instruction manual can do a lot more than just teach your customers how to use your products.

Promote Correct and Optimal Product Use

As we said at the start, if your customers aren’t sure what to do with your product, they’re not going to be your customers for much longer.

Even those who have an adequate understanding of how to use your product might not stick around if they can’t use it to its full potential. Sure, they may get some value out of it — but they’ll almost certainly be missing out on major opportunities to thrive.

With comprehensive instructions in-hand, though, your users will always know exactly how to get the most out of every product you offer.

Prevent Incorrect Use of Product

At the same time, an effective instruction manual decreases the chances of your customers using your product incorrectly.

For one, your customers will never have to guess as to what to do next — and can simply refer to the document if they’re unsure.

What’s more, your instruction manuals will explicitly state how the product is not to be used.

This will further optimize user outcomes, and minimize the chances of their creating dangerous situations through misuse of your product.

Offer Self-Service Resources

Your instruction manuals give your customers even more ways to solve problems and accomplish their goals without reaching out to your support staff.

In the immediate sense, this minimizes friction for your customers, and makes it just that much easier to take the next step in their journey. Thinking of the bigger picture, your instruction manuals will empower your users to take more control over their journey — even when facing the most difficult challenges along the way.

(That said, your users will only experience this benefit if they have complete access to your instruction manuals at all times. More in a bit.)

Improve User Adoption and Retention Rates

With a comprehensive instruction manual in hand, your customers:

Will know how to use your product to its highest potential, and
Will have the autonomy needed to make progress on their own

This will have a major impact on your ability to onboard new users quickly and efficiently. The easier it is for them to learn to use your product, the sooner they’ll reach those initial “aha” moments and milestones.

An effective instruction manual can also help keep users onboard — and even get them more engaged with your products in the future.

Again, they’ll be more likely to stick with a product when they encounter trouble spots. Moreover, “regular” users can upgrade their skills and product knowledge with ease — potentially leading them to upgrade to a more valuable product or service tier soon after.

Save Time and Resources Internally

Taking the time to create an effective instruction manual will actually save your team a ton of time and other resources in the long run.

Firstly, your support staff will have fewer service tickets to work through — giving them more time and energy to spend on the more intensive issues your users will still occasionally face. Service engagements will also be more efficient, as both parties will maintain alignment by literally being on the same page of a product manual as they work through the problem at hand.

Bonus: An Asset for Marketing and Sales Teams

To be clear, instruction manuals are not the place for overly promotional or salesy copy and content.

However, they can have an effect on your customers’ willingness to buy from you. Your prospects, for example, can use your instruction manuals to determine which product is right for them — and what their potential options will be in the future.

(They can also determine which products aren’t for them, which will help them avoid a poor experience with your company.)

And, in general, offering all this valuable information to your customers will make them appreciate your brand more and more — and will lead to a number of other benefits for your company.

Qualities of an Effective Instruction Manual

Again, though instruction manuals vary in terms of structure and content, those that are most effective share the following qualities.

Above all else, your instruction manuals need to be helpful.

Yes, they need to help your customers use your products, overcome challenges, and learn more about what your brand can do for them.

But “being helpful” also means optimizing the overall experience for your users.

The goal of your instruction manual isn’t to simply provide information; it’s to help the user accomplish something. While the information is the focus of the document, the following qualities are just as important to ensure your instruction manuals are truly as helpful as they can be.

Instruction manuals should be made accessible to all users at all times, on any device.

(Really, going omnichannel is crucial to overall customer support efforts by today’s standards.)

For our purposes, offering instruction manuals openly and in multiple formats minimizes friction for the user at a time when they’re most in need of assistance. And, even when not in immediate need, they can still engage with the document however and whenever they prefer.

Many teams include their instruction manuals within their customer service knowledge base . This makes for open access to all manuals as needed — and optimizes the navigability and searchability of the document, as well.

Clear, Comprehensive, and Concise

The actual content of your instruction manuals should always follow the three C’s.

First, it must be clear. In such technical documentation, clarity of language, visual aids, and other media is crucial to the user’s comprehension. The meaning of all instructional content should be self-evident, with minimal room for interpretation throughout the document.

An instruction manual should cover the product (and specific product usage) comprehensively — leaving no information unsaid, and no questions unanswered. As needed, the manual may explain certain points in greater detail either directly or via additional resources.

At the same time, being concise allows your users to quickly find the info they’re looking for — and just as quickly put it to use. And, this brevity will decrease instances of misunderstanding that could be disastrous to the user experience.

User-Centric

All instruction manuals should be created specifically for the end-user.

The user’s knowledge, skills, and abilities, for example, should factor into a number of decisions, such as:

Use of jargon, acronyms, and other verbiage
The depth of explanations and illustrations needed
The inclusion of additional instructions or resources

Many brands even offer multiple instruction manuals for single products for different users and use cases.

As shown above, effective instruction manuals also speak directly to the individual — not to a faceless “user”. This shift in language and overall tone adds a layer of personableness to the experience that reinforces the brand’s dedication to their audience’s success.

Great instruction manuals don’t shy away from the use of visual aids.

Photographs, illustrations, diagrams…all of it (and more) should be used frequently to clarify and further the user’s understanding of a concept or process. In some cases, graphic aids alone may be sufficient for helping the user accomplish a task.

Digital instruction manuals often include animated illustrations and video demonstrations.

Effective instruction manuals are organized to maximize usability and navigability — and to aid user comprehension.

Firstly, they’ll include the table of contents, index, glossary, and other traditional aspects as expected. On top of their actual functions, the mere existence of these assets makes for a more familiar experience for users, even when the content is unfamiliar.

The information within effective instruction manuals is appropriately scaffolded, as well. In other words, it’s presented so that user knowledge is constantly building on itself, with each piece of information preparing the reader for the next.

Note, for example, how Nureva focuses first on pre-installation recommendations, then leads readers to installation guides and other in-depth content.

Top-notch instruction manuals have a branded look, tone, and feel to them without distracting the reader from the purpose of the document.

Typically, this means taking advantage of spaces where branding is more appropriate and expected. For example, Apple rarely refers to itself throughout its manuals – except when required for demonstrative purposes.

But, again, branding is always secondary to the goal of showing the customer how to use the product.

Strategies to Writing an Effective Instruction Manual

Alright, so you know your instruction manuals will need to adhere to everything we discussed above.

Now, let’s look at how to make it happen.

1. Set Clear Goals

Your first order of business is to set clear goals for the overall initiative.

Start by asking the question, “Why are we creating this instruction manual?” — and going beyond the surface with your answer. While the obvious answer is “to help our customers use our product successfully”, nail down clear statements that define:

What “successful product use” means in this instance
What successful use of the product will enable users to do
Why this is important to their journey

Then, start thinking about the quantitative metrics, such as CSAT and CES, along with conversion, adoption, and retention rates.

In setting more specific and contextual goals to strive for, you’ll be better able to measure the impact of your new instruction manuals — and to make laser-focused improvements to your documentation in the future.

2. Think Like Your Users

In order to create a user-centric instruction manual that gives your customers what they need, you need to put yourself in their shoes.

First, consider who they are in terms of persona, audience segment, and how they engage with your brand. This will help you set the correct tone for the manual — along with your approach to creating it.

Then, answer the following questions about your user:

What background knowledge and skills do they have that relate to the product?
What required knowledge or skills do they not have? How can you teach them?
What questions might they have as they learn to use the product?

With this knowledge, you can deliver the exact information your users need at a given moment in order to get maximum value from your product.

Lastly, think about how your users typically engage with branded content and documentation. While striving toward omnichannel is still the ticket, you at least want to make your instruction manuals available via your customers’ preferred methods.

Thinking like your users allows you to anticipate their needs at every step — and to provide the exact guidance they need to press forward with confidence.

3. Involve All Stakeholders and Team Members

Creating an instruction manual should be a collaborative process involving a number of stakeholders within your organization.

For example:

Dev and Design teams can provide product features, functions, and specs; break down processes into specific and sequential steps; check the document for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Customer Service and Support can help identify key information to focus on; provide insight into user issues; assess manuals for digestibility.
Marketing and Sales can keep messaging on brand as needed, and can also provide insight into your customers’ frequently asked questions and such.

And, regardless of their specialty, getting additional eyes on the document will minimize typos, grammatical errors, and other simple mistakes.

4. Create and Use Instruction Manual Templates

Over time, you’re going to end up creating more than one instruction manual.

Instead of starting each guide from scratch, why not create a boilerplate template from the get-go?

Internally, it gives your team a head start on each initiative — and aids in the development of standardized, repeatable processes for creating new manuals. As we’ll get to in a moment, the use of templates makes it easier to identify and make improvements to your documentation moving forward.

For your users, templates provide a sense of consistency and familiarity at a time of relative uncertainty. Practically speaking, it makes it easier for returning users to navigate each instructional document you publish. These consistently positive self-service instances will continually reinforce your users’ trust in your brand.

To be sure, you will need to tweak your instruction manual templates for every new document you create, for a variety of reasons. But starting with the template that’s been most effective thus far will easily get your efforts started on the right foot.

On that note…

5. Collect Usage Data and Feedback — and Make Improvements

The only way to know whether your instruction manuals have been effective or not is to collect usage data and feedback from your customers.

Regarding usage data, you want to pay close attention to things like:

What pages and content are being accessed most frequently
How long users tend to stay on a page, or in a session
What their paths look like when navigating the document

Zooming out, you also want to analyze the context of these engagements as best you can. Knowing what a user did before and after checking out your instruction manual will allow you to better understand their needs, and gauge your ability to help them.

User feedback should play a key role as you make improvements to your instruction manuals. In some cases, you might ask users to provide feedback via well-timed surveys and similar forms.

Customer support tickets, marketing and sales conversations, and other engagements can provide valuable insight into your user’s instructional needs, too. In analyzing these engagements, you’ll uncover:

Questions and problems your customers still have regarding your product
Information they’re unaware of that should be included in your manuals
Issues they have with accessibility and usability of your manuals

With all this data in hand, you’ll be able to make ultra-specific improvements to your individual user manuals, your instruction manual templates, and your approach to creating this documentation on the whole.

Use Helpjuice to Create, Present, & Manage Instruction Manuals

Let’s face it:

To create the type of engaging, navigable, and user-friendly instruction manual your customers need, you’ll likely need some digital assistance.

While many basic documentation tools can help you get started, you’ll eventually want to move onto dedicated knowledge base software to a) optimize your documentation efforts, and b) deliver a more valuable experience to your customers.

Which is where we come in.

With Helpjuice, your team can collaborate in real-time to create rich, comprehensive, interactive instruction manuals for your users — then make them easily accessible to your user base as needed. And, with our reporting tools in hand, you’ll always know how to make your manuals more helpful and empowering to your customers over time.

Want to learn more? Schedule a demo with Helpjuice today!

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Effective Teaching Strategies

Should We Teach Students Formulas for Writing?

May 13, 2024
Todd Walker and Jennifer Trainor

As writing instructors, we often see students with rigid ideas about what writing is “supposed” to look like: Topic sentence here. Quote Sandwich there. Five-paragraph format to tie it all together in a neat package. Formulas like these are a double-edged sword for teachers. We know they can stifle creativity and voice, but they can also be a useful starting place for struggling students, like grabbing onto a life-preserver in the ocean because you can’t swim.

Teachers often use formulas to address such struggles to aid students as they learn new genres and genre conventions. But formulas, like life preservers, while sometimes necessary, will eventually be a hindrance to the kind of writing (swimming) we are aiming for. They can too easily become fossilized “how-to’s” that students over-rely on, reified as “rules” in students’ minds. As Kerry Dirk notes, while genres often have formulaic features, these features can change even as the nature of the genre remains, leaving students without the support they need (253).

As writing teachers, our actual goal must be to teach students how to swim—to think rhetorically, to develop their own voice, and to gain awareness of the many genres they may need in their academic and professional lives. Swimming is hard, especially when students feel the waves are too rough or the water is too deep, but students can only rely on our lifelines for so long. Formulas, when too rigid, will hinder growth, especially if they become divorced from the genre and rhetorical complexities they were designed to help students manage. Teachers contribute to this problem when we encode formulas into our assessment practices. When we grade students on their ability to enact a formula, we have unwittingly taught them to believe that writing is merely a mechanical series of steps, and we’ve hidden from them the complexities that writing entails. If mastering a genre were simply a matter of following a formula, “we would all be capable of successfully writing anything when we are given [that] formula. …but writing is not that easy” (Dirk).

Indeed, when taught in a rigid way, formulas can harm students’ motivation as writers. Heavily regulated, formulaic writing assignments alienate students from their own rhetorical thinking, and promote a mechanistic view of learning, where learning becomes synonymous with assessment.

So what’s the alternative?

Chris Mays provides a helpful lens for understanding the place of formulas in writing classrooms. Mays takes up the problem that “writing is too big, too complex, and too expansive” to be encoded in discrete formulas or reducible to a series of steps. But rather than eschew formulas altogether, Mays embraces them. He writes that although writing involves an almost “vertiginous” range of chaotic elements and contextual choices, it also shows “a remarkable tendency toward provisional stabilities” that help reduce complexity. Experienced writers create provisional stabilities for themselves by making a temporary cut—e.g. limiting complexity by establishing a boundary around a specific section of the larger system. Making a cut allows us to act; Mays argues that complex systems can only be navigated by temporarily creating a boundary around a smaller, frozen slice.

We can tame writing complexities for students by helping them perceive formulas as examples of temporary stabilities rather than discrete rules or regulations. A temporary stability is a necessary fiction, a slice of static knowledge that acknowledges its limitations. Stabilities offer students a lens on an aspect of writing that they can analyze, learn, and practice.

Into the classroom: How to use formulas in a non-formulaic way

Be transparent about the difference between a rule and a lifeline

Transparency is one way to help students understand that formulas are provisional stabilities that help writers navigate complexity. We begin our writing courses by asking students to come up with a list of all the rules of writing they’ve been told over their academic career: “Don’t use ‘I’,” “Topic sentences at the start of paragraphs,” “Thesis statement at the end of the opening paragraph.” We then discuss with students both the limitations and utility of these formulaic rules, with the ultimate goal of helping students understand why teachers often require these rules. Toward this ultimate goal, we have found it useful to share the swimming metaphor to our students, describing generalized writing rules and high school formulas as lifelines or life jackets for turbulent water. Helping students see the reasons for the formula can demystify and contextualize it, giving students agency to make decisions about when to rely on the formula and when to stray away from it, and to leave the life jacket behind.

Use metacognitive questions and reflections

After a more general discussion about the role formulas play as temporary stabilities when learning how to write, we ask students to examine a specific stability (for example, formulas for paragraph structure) and consider its potential. Students have usually learned several variations of paragraph formulas in high school: for example, the PIE or TEA method (Point, Information, Explanation, or Topic, Evidence, Analysis). We invite students to consider how well these paragraph formulas work in rhetorical contexts beyond school. Students examine paragraph structures in a variety of contexts and discuss the utility of paragraph formulas. We remind students that they don’t have to abandon the formula, but they do have choices to make about when and how to use it. And we invite them to discover other paragraph stabilities in other rhetorical contexts: What other paragraph structures do writers use?

Teaching students to analyze formulas as temporary stabilities can show them the value of putting a topic sentence at the start of a paragraph (it makes it easier for a reader to know what their point is) while also acknowledging the limitations of the stability. Empowering students to choose which stabilities they want to use and when helps them use formulas more strategically and move past them when necessary. Such rhetorical dexterity is crucial for learning new genres, and for transferring learning across contexts.

These lessons are anchored in metacognitive questions: W hat did the stability allow you to communicate? What did it hinder? How comfortable do you need to feel in a writing context before you can swim without assistance? Do all writers need at least some lifelines to help them achieve their rhetorical goals?

Be aware of the importance of stabilities for students’ development and mental health

Part of our metacognitive approach involves asking students to consider why they are drawn to stabilities even as they chafe against their constraints. For some students, prescriptive formulas help them feel less overwhelmed; formulas provide ballast against stressful complexity, a way to manage anxiety and cognitive overload. This is especially true for many of our students who often hold down jobs, commute long distances to campus, and feel under-prepared for college. Teaching students to see formulas as temporary stabilities can help them manage their anxieties about writing without contributing to over-reliance on rules and formulas.

Give students low-stakes opportunities to experiment with and without formulas

Low-stakes learning environments encourage the kinds of risk-taking that student writers need if they are to experiment with formulas as temporary stabilities rather than permanent safety features. In our classes, we use contract and self-grading approaches to create room for students to explore new formulas or abandon old ones. Students have ample opportunity to try and fail, revise, and re-try without worrying about how it will affect their grade.

Teaching students that formulas are temporary stabilities that help writers navigate complexity makes formulas feel more authentic and practical for students. They learn that a formula is not a platonic ideal, but a potentially useful stability that allows them to float, and then swim, on their own.

Todd Walker teaches integrated reading and writing courses at multiple community colleges in the Pacific Northwest.

Jennifer Trainor teaches writing at San Francisco State University. She has written on equity and racial justice pedagogies, student engagement, and antiracist assessment.

Dirk, K. (2010). Navigating genres. Writing spaces: Readings on writing , 1, 249-262.

Inoue, A. B. (2019). Labor-based grading contracts: Building equity and inclusion in the compassionate writing classroom. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse.

Mays, C. (2017). Writing complexity, one stability at a time: Teaching writing as a complex system. College Composition and Communication, 559-585.

Soliday, M., & Trainor, J. S. (2016). Rethinking regulation in the age of the literacy machine. College Composition & Communication, 68(1), 125-151.

Warner, J. (2018). Why they can’t write: Killing the five-paragraph essay and other necessities . JHU Press.

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Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

Jonathan Lambert

A close-up of a woman's hand writing in a notebook.

If you're like many digitally savvy Americans, it has likely been a while since you've spent much time writing by hand.

The laborious process of tracing out our thoughts, letter by letter, on the page is becoming a relic of the past in our screen-dominated world, where text messages and thumb-typed grocery lists have replaced handwritten letters and sticky notes. Electronic keyboards offer obvious efficiency benefits that have undoubtedly boosted our productivity — imagine having to write all your emails longhand.

To keep up, many schools are introducing computers as early as preschool, meaning some kids may learn the basics of typing before writing by hand.

But giving up this slower, more tactile way of expressing ourselves may come at a significant cost, according to a growing body of research that's uncovering the surprising cognitive benefits of taking pen to paper, or even stylus to iPad — for both children and adults.

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In kids, studies show that tracing out ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads to better and longer-lasting recognition and understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.

"There's actually some very important things going on during the embodied experience of writing by hand," says Ramesh Balasubramaniam , a neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced. "It has important cognitive benefits."

While those benefits have long been recognized by some (for instance, many authors, including Jennifer Egan and Neil Gaiman , draft their stories by hand to stoke creativity), scientists have only recently started investigating why writing by hand has these effects.

A slew of recent brain imaging research suggests handwriting's power stems from the relative complexity of the process and how it forces different brain systems to work together to reproduce the shapes of letters in our heads onto the page.

Your brain on handwriting

Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.

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"Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of," says Marieke Longcamp , a cognitive neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université.

Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page.

"Your fingers have to each do something different to produce a recognizable letter," says Sophia Vinci-Booher , an educational neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University. Adding to the complexity, your visual system must continuously process that letter as it's formed. With each stroke, your brain compares the unfolding script with mental models of the letters and words, making adjustments to fingers in real time to create the letters' shapes, says Vinci-Booher.

That's not true for typing.

To type "tap" your fingers don't have to trace out the form of the letters — they just make three relatively simple and uniform movements. In comparison, it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.

Recent brain imaging studies bolster this idea. A study published in January found that when students write by hand, brain areas involved in motor and visual information processing " sync up " with areas crucial to memory formation, firing at frequencies associated with learning.

"We don't see that [synchronized activity] in typewriting at all," says Audrey van der Meer , a psychologist and study co-author at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She suggests that writing by hand is a neurobiologically richer process and that this richness may confer some cognitive benefits.

Other experts agree. "There seems to be something fundamental about engaging your body to produce these shapes," says Robert Wiley , a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. "It lets you make associations between your body and what you're seeing and hearing," he says, which might give the mind more footholds for accessing a given concept or idea.

Those extra footholds are especially important for learning in kids, but they may give adults a leg up too. Wiley and others worry that ditching handwriting for typing could have serious consequences for how we all learn and think.

What might be lost as handwriting wanes

The clearest consequence of screens and keyboards replacing pen and paper might be on kids' ability to learn the building blocks of literacy — letters.

"Letter recognition in early childhood is actually one of the best predictors of later reading and math attainment," says Vinci-Booher. Her work suggests the process of learning to write letters by hand is crucial for learning to read them.

"When kids write letters, they're just messy," she says. As kids practice writing "A," each iteration is different, and that variability helps solidify their conceptual understanding of the letter.

Research suggests kids learn to recognize letters better when seeing variable handwritten examples, compared with uniform typed examples.

This helps develop areas of the brain used during reading in older children and adults, Vinci-Booher found.

"This could be one of the ways that early experiences actually translate to long-term life outcomes," she says. "These visually demanding, fine motor actions bake in neural communication patterns that are really important for learning later on."

Ditching handwriting instruction could mean that those skills don't get developed as well, which could impair kids' ability to learn down the road.

"If young children are not receiving any handwriting training, which is very good brain stimulation, then their brains simply won't reach their full potential," says van der Meer. "It's scary to think of the potential consequences."

Many states are trying to avoid these risks by mandating cursive instruction. This year, California started requiring elementary school students to learn cursive , and similar bills are moving through state legislatures in several states, including Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin. (So far, evidence suggests that it's the writing by hand that matters, not whether it's print or cursive.)

Slowing down and processing information

For adults, one of the main benefits of writing by hand is that it simply forces us to slow down.

During a meeting or lecture, it's possible to type what you're hearing verbatim. But often, "you're not actually processing that information — you're just typing in the blind," says van der Meer. "If you take notes by hand, you can't write everything down," she says.

The relative slowness of the medium forces you to process the information, writing key words or phrases and using drawing or arrows to work through ideas, she says. "You make the information your own," she says, which helps it stick in the brain.

Such connections and integration are still possible when typing, but they need to be made more intentionally. And sometimes, efficiency wins out. "When you're writing a long essay, it's obviously much more practical to use a keyboard," says van der Meer.

Still, given our long history of using our hands to mark meaning in the world, some scientists worry about the more diffuse consequences of offloading our thinking to computers.

"We're foisting a lot of our knowledge, extending our cognition, to other devices, so it's only natural that we've started using these other agents to do our writing for us," says Balasubramaniam.

It's possible that this might free up our minds to do other kinds of hard thinking, he says. Or we might be sacrificing a fundamental process that's crucial for the kinds of immersive cognitive experiences that enable us to learn and think at our full potential.

Balasubramaniam stresses, however, that we don't have to ditch digital tools to harness the power of handwriting. So far, research suggests that scribbling with a stylus on a screen activates the same brain pathways as etching ink on paper. It's the movement that counts, he says, not its final form.

Jonathan Lambert is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance journalist who covers science, health and policy.

handwriting

Practices of teaching writing: an introduction to the special issue

Published: 10 May 2024

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Steve Graham 1 ,
Gustaf B. Skar 2 &
April Camping 3

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Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

While many children begin writing before they start formal education and writing and learning to write occurs both inside and outside of schools (Bazerman et al., 2018 ), a primary goal of schooling is to help students master writing. This is particularly critical because writing is such a valuable and versatile tool.

Although writing began its journey as a means for recording quantity of goods in ancient Mesopotamia (Robinson, 2022 ), its uses have multiplied greatly across the millennia (Wyse, 2017 ). It is used for such mundane tasks as telling who we are (one’s signature) as well as more profound tasks of telling who we were (funerary inscriptions). Writing provides a useful means for communicating with others and sharing information across space and time. It serves a diverse array of purposes including artistic, political, spiritual, and personal functions. Respectively, these purposes are illustrated when writing is used to create imaginary worlds, political documents like the Declaration of Independence, capturing spiritual experiences in a journal, and writing about one’s experiences to better understand them. In school, writing is particularly useful as writing about subject-matter material or text makes such information more comprehensible and memorable (Graham et al., 2015 ). Writing has become so important to everyday life, that students who do not learn to write well are not able to fully draw on its power to facilitate and extend learning, making it less likely they will realize their educational, occupational, personal, or civic potential.

Despite the value of writing, many teachers worldwide indicate they lack knowledge of how to teach it effectively (Graham & Rijlaarsdam, 2016 ). This is unfortunate. If students are to take advantage of the power of writing, teachers must have access to effective teaching tools and we must have a better sense of how writing is taught. A useful approach for accomplishing these objectives is by conducting research to determine what instructional practices are effective in improving writing and to determine how the teaching of writing proceeds in schools. This Special Issue of Reading & Writing does just that. It includes intervention studies from across the globe (Belgium, China, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and the United States) that examined the effectiveness of specific writing instructional procedures. It also included a study from the United States exploring how middle and high school teachers taught writing during the third school year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As you can see below, the studies covered a broad range of topics including implicit and explicit methods for teaching writing, writing as a tool for learning, restructuring writing instruction, second-language writing, and formative assessment.

The lead paper in this Special Issue was by Skar and colleagues. It examined the veracity of the writing is caught approach to teaching writing by engaging first grade students in Norway in two years of writing for interesting and functional purposes. The writing is caught approach assumes that writing is acquired naturally as students write for real purposes. Unfortunately, students in the writing is caught treatment condition did not make greater writing gains than students in the control condition (business-as-usual), raising questions about the assumptions underlying this theoretical approach to teaching writing.

The second paper by Vandermeulen and colleagues enacted an intervention where Grade 10 students in Sweden compared how they wrote a synthesis of source materials with models of how to do so. It was assumed that such comparisons would extend students’ learning on how to create such synthesis effectively. Receiving this type of feedback, with and without the opportunities to observe additional models of such syntheses, had a positive impact on writing a such text.

Landriew and associates examined the impact of explicit writing instruction and collaborative writing on the argumentative writing performance and self-efficacy of Grade 11 and 12 students in Belgium. They further explored the effects of alternating between individual and collaborative writing throughout the writing process. They found that the combination of explicit and collaborative writing enhanced argumentative writing and self-efficacy, but alternating between individual and collaborative writing was not more effective than simply collaborating throughout the whole writing process.

In an intervention study by Bower and van der Veen, a dialogic writing intervention was tested with Grades 5 and 6 students in the Netherlands. Students in the treatment condition learned how to write, talk about their writing with peers, and then rewrite. The write, talk, and rewrite condition improved the quality of students’ argumentative text in comparison to control students, but these improvements did not necessarily transfer to a second genre.

In an intervention study conducted in Portugal, Rocha and colleagues examined if Grade 3 students’ writing performance was enhanced when Self-Regulated Strategy Development was combined with either systematic teaching of attentional processes or the teaching of transcription skills. The two SRSD groups evidenced higher scores than a wait-list control group on planning, producing complete texts, and executive functioning. The combination of SRSD and teaching transcription skills had a positive effect on handwriting and spelling, whereas combining SRSD and attention training enhanced academic performance.

In a study conducted in the United States, Aitken and Halkowski applied a single-case design with four adolescents (two students with a learning disability and two students who were multilingual writers) to determine if teaching them how to set writing goals resulted in improved writing. They established a functional relationship between goal instruction and students’ improvements in the quality and number of functional elements in students’ persuasive writing.

In a writing-to-learn study with Grades 4 and 5 students with disabilities in the United States, Kiuhara and associates applied the Practice-Based Professional Development model to teach teachers to use a Self-Regulated Strategy Development approach for asking content-focused open-ended questioning strategies, which included both argument writing and foundational mathematical knowledge, when teaching students about fractions. In this single-case multiple-baseline design, teachers use of questioning strategies increased when teaching fractions. Improvements in the quality of mathematical persuasive writing also improved in association with this increase in questioning strategies.

In a study conducted with university students in China, Li and Hebert examined students’ reception and reflection on the online peer feedback for text revision they received in an English as a second language writing course. Participating students sought online peer feedback asynchronously using an instant messaging platform (QQ), completed a revision worksheet that involved coding and reflecting on this feedback, and revised their papers. The feedback students received led to revisions that produced meaningful improvements in their text. They further found that the primary focus of peer feedback was content, and students generally followed peer feedback (but ignored peer feedback when they disagreed with it). Students further asked peers for clarification when they felt the provided feedback was unclear or confusing.

Kennedy and Shiel examined the implementation of the writing component of the Write to Read ( W2R ) literacy intervention. This was enacted in eight socio-economically disadvantaged elementary-level urban schools in Ireland. Through onsite professional development, the writing component of this program sought to build teachers’ capacity to design and implement a writing workshop framework infused with research-informed practices for writing. Teachers were generally successful in implementing this writing workshop approach, and they allocated more time to writing instruction as a result.

In a study conducted in the United States, Graham and colleagues examined if there were differences in the in-class, online, and hybrid (in-class and on-line) writing instruction provided by middle and high school teachers during the third school year of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was only one statistically detectable difference between in-class, online, and hybrid writing lessons. In hybrid lessons, digital written products were created more often than they were during in-class lessons. More importantly, teachers devoted little time to teaching writing during in-calls, online, or hybrid lessons, as writing and writing instruction did not occur in close to one-third of all lessons. Further, teachers typically included only one writing activity in a lesson.

In the final paper in the Special Issue, Wengelin and associates examined the success with which Swedish children 10 to 13 years of age, with and without reading and spelling challenges, detected and corrected spelling miscues, the degree of hesitation within words when doing so, and how these processes impacted written text. They found that children experiencing difficulties with decoding were less adept at detecting and correcting spelling miscues than peers without such difficulties. While students with decoding challenges displayed a slightly higher tendency to experience disruptions in words, such dysfluencies did not did not appear to impact the quality of students’ text.

In closing, we hope you enjoyed reading these 10 excellent studies as much as we did. We also hope they serve as a springboard to new research on teaching writing and improved instruction in the classroom.

Bazerman, C., Berninger, V., Brandt, D., Graham, S., Langer, J., Murphy, S., Matsuda, P., Rowe, D., & Schleppegrell, M. (2018). The lifespan development of writing . National Council of English.

Graham, S., & Rijlaarsdam, G. (2016). Writing education around the globe: Introduction and call for a new global analysis. Reading & Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal , 29 , 781–792. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-016-9640-1 .

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Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Santangelo, T. (2015). Research-based writing practices and the common core: Meta-Analysis and Meta-Synthesis. Elementary School Journal , 115 , 498–522. https://doi.org/10.1086/681964 .

Robinson, A. (2022). The story of writing: Alphabets, hieroglyphs, and pictograms . Thames & Hudson.

Wyse, D. (2017). How writing works: From the invention of the alphabet to the rise of social media . Cambridge.

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Graham, S., Skar, G.B. & Camping, A. Practices of teaching writing: an introduction to the special issue. Read Writ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-024-10553-4

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Writing children's books to inspire

Jenna Grodzicki '01 began to write books after teaching for a few years, hoping to inspire children. Currently an elementary library media specialist, Jenna continues to produce fiction & non-fiction picture books.

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The Basics of Instructional Writing: 3 Simple Steps

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Instructional writing, as the name suggests, provides instructions on how to do something. Whether they are instructions on making lemonade, assembling furniture, operating a machine, repairing a printer, or using a software application, the basics of instructional writing are the same.

Here are some guidelines to follow when creating instructional content:

Plan the content

Study and understand the procedure that you need to document.

Organize complex procedures into a series of tasks.

Identify the steps involved in completing each task.

Arrange the steps in sequence. Make sure to not miss even small steps.

Add tips or helpful hints and notes where required.

How do you determine when to break down a procedure into tasks?

Take the example of an instructional manual for a software application. A simple procedure like "How to log in to the application" can be described in a few steps whereas a more involved procedure like "How to manage user accounts and user roles" can include many steps. It makes sense to break down such procedures into tasks.

Example (Log in procedure that contains only a single task) Note: Instructions for the task are provided in this example.

How to log in to the application:

Launch the application.

In the Log In window that displays, enter the username and password, and click Log in.

The Home screen displays the main user interface.

Example (User role set up procedure that contains multiple tasks) Note: Instructions for each task are not provided in this example.

How to manage user accounts and user roles:

Task 1 - Add, modify, or delete user roles

Task 2 - Set up user accounts and user groups

Task 3 - Assign roles to users/groups

Task 4 - Set up module access to user groups

Tip: As demonstrated in the example above, it is best to break down complex procedures into multiple smaller tasks with less steps in each task rather than keep it as a single long procedure with 50 or 70 steps. Tasks with fewer steps (less than 20) will be easier for the reader to follow.

Organize and structure the content

Provided below is a typical content structure for an instructional guide:

A heading that clearly identifies the procedure being documented

A brief introduction to the procedure

Any prerequisites that the user should be aware of

Learning Objectives for each procedure, if applicable for your content

Tasks in each procedure organized in a logical sequence

A heading that clearly identifies each task (ideally this should include the action verb for the task) (For example – Apply an existing color scheme, Create a new color scheme, Modify a color scheme, Create room-specific color scheme)

Steps within each task organized sequentially using numbered lists and enhanced with graphical references, where required

Warnings, tips, hints, or notes to provide additional information

A concluding step that indicates the completion of a task

The screenshot below is a sample of instructional writing from the ASCENT learning guide Autodesk Inventor 2023: Advanced Assembly Modeling .

Test your content

This is an important final step to ensure that the instructions are complete and that there are no missing steps.

If you are tasked with writing instructions for a product or procedure but are unsure of how to begin, let the technical writers at ASCENT help! Please reach out so we can discuss your project. Email us at: [email protected]

About the Author Technical Writer and Editor<br><br>Surya has been writing and editing technical content for over two decades in multiple industries. How do you transform complex technical content into an easy-to-understand document? Ask Surya - technical writing is her passion! She has been with ASCENT since 2018. She holds a master’s degree in English Literature, and a diploma in Journalism, and is a certified Technical Writer. Follow on Linkedin More Content by Surya Nair

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A lineage of teaching with love

Dr. raissa desmet encourages her students to embrace their whole selves by creating projects that center their experiences and identities..

Dr. Raissa DeSmet comes from a family of educators. From her mother and grandfather, both teachers, she inherited what she calls “a strong sense of vocation and service, and the belief that education, at its core, is a practice of healing.

“This is work that I feel called to do,” she said. “It grounds me in the present moment. It is an act of love.”

This is perhaps best seen in how DeSmet, associate teaching professor in the University of Washington Bothell’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences , views the individuals in her classroom as people first and scholars second. “Many of the students I work with, like me, are children of refugees,” she said. “We emerge from histories of war, colonization, authoritarianism and forced migration. There are layers of trauma — as well as insight — that we bring with us to the educational setting.

“I strive to teach in ways that center students, their experiences and their identities, and also empower them to co-lead and co-facilitate so that decisions, whenever possible, are made collectively and with consent.”

In recognition of her teaching skills and her dedication to students, DeSmet has been named the 2024 recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award , one of the University’s highest honors.

Honoring the past

DeSmet’s vision of teaching is embodied in the program she founded, titled Southeast Asian Pasts & Futures, and in her course, Memory Work and Cultural Production in Diaspora. In both spaces, students reflect on their own lives, conduct archival and community-centered forms of research, and produce final projects that tell stories and support wellbeing.

The idea for SEAPF originated in 2015 when DeSmet was on her first professional visit to the Burke Museum. “I was invited by Dr. Holly Barker, a curator, to visit the collections,” DeSmet recalled. “As we were winding through the aisles of cultural belongings –– a spirit house, a row of finely carved paddles — Dr. Barker explained that some of the museum’s most important work happens not in the galleries but behind the scenes.”

DeSmet explained that, as colonial institutions, museums are haunted spaces. “Pieces like those at the Burke were severed from their lived contexts by the forces of imperialism, militarism and migration, making them not only powerful presences and forms of knowledge but also traumatic remainders,” she said. “The Burke is part of a movement among museums to engage these violent histories and work toward redress.

“One way it does this is by inviting people whose ancestors made, used and lived with these pieces to view the museum’s collections; recognizing their authority; and opening access to cultural belongings as bridges to the past and resources in the present.”

A sign that reads: "Ethnology: the study and comparison of human cultures."

Recognizing the present

A key inspiration for this work was the Knowledge Family, previously known as Research Family , a group of Pacific Islander undergraduates from the University of Washington organized to activate Oceanic collections in support of their communities. “Hearing about this work made my hair stand on end,” DeSmet said. “‘Could something like this exist for Southeast Asian students?’ I asked myself.

“Five years later, and with support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Center for Southeast Asia and Its Diasporas, Southeast Asian Pasts & Futures became my answer.”

Since its beginning, SEAPF’s network of community partners has expanded to include not only the Burke Museum but also the Wing Luke Museum and anti-violence organization API Chaya.

SEAPF is co-taught and co-directed by DeSmet and Nhi P. Tran, assistant director for student success and initiatives, who is also being honored this year as the recipient of UW Bothell’s Distinguished Accomplishments Award.

As 2022 SEAPF member Justin Totaan recalled, “Growing up in the United States I always felt like I was two halves of a person who didn’t quite make a whole. When I was at school or with friends, I always felt too foreign — but whenever I was at home, I felt too American.

“I had never felt as though I truly belonged anywhere,” he said, “until I became a part of Southeast Asian Past & Futures.”

Writing through memory

Each SEAPF cohort meets every week across three quarters and engages with cultural artifacts, partner organizations and each other. “Sometimes we work directly with the Burke or Wing Luke Museum collections, but we also turn toward our own cultural belongings and practices with new eyes,” DeSmet said.

For one assignment, students produced a “biography” for an object from their own lives. “Writing through their senses and memories and their conversations with loved ones, they told tales of mothers, grandmothers and aunties; bedtimes and mealtimes; longing and connection.

“When we shared these stories in our circle,” DeSmet said, “we cried.”

In her letter of support endorsing DeSmet for the teaching award, Barker wrote, “SEAPF opens opportunities for Southeast Asian students to see their families’ and their communities’ stories and knowledge reflected in their coursework, and these approaches benefit every student who participates.

“Raissa is humble and focuses on her students’ experiences rather than herself, and I do not think she is even aware of the degree to which her teaching serves as a template for other professors who have developed similar courses and teaching opportunities at the Burke Museum.”

Raissa is humble and focuses on her students’ experiences rather than herself, and I do not think she is even aware of the degree to which her teaching serves as a template for other professors. Dr. Holly Barker, Burke Museum curator for Oceanic and Asian Culture

Learning about oneself

DeSmet’s course, Memory Work and Cultural Production in Diaspora, places student experiences and identities at the heart of intellectual work. Memory work is a key component that focuses on weaving historical narratives “from below.”

This memory work engages the past through the subjective position of the researcher. “It’s a feminist methodology that challenges dominant modes of history,” DeSmet explained. “It attends to community stories, minoritized stories, stories that have been forgotten or silenced.”

In this vein, the students produce a memory work text that asks them to “walk” through their own locations to trace their and/or their family or community histories across time and space.

This project is developed across the quarter, with scaffolding in the form of weekly journal prompts, and through a series of conceptual maps — including an Inheritance Tree, a non-heraldic tool for showing lineage without reference to “blood” or patriarchal structures of descent. “The tree helps students disrupt received narratives and assert what, for them, constitutes inheritance,” DeSmet said.

The results of these critical enquiries and ensuing projects have been stunning, she said. “Tristan Sorenson (Global Studies ’20), whose project would become a bridge to graduate school, produced a tribute to his grandfather that examined white settler masculinities and relationships to land,” she recalled, “and Grace Mandakh (Culture, Literature & the Arts ’23), whose parents migrated from Mongolia, created a three-dimensional ger, the once-forbidden Mongolian script scrolled on the outside.”

Legacy lives on

Assignments are tailored so that project outcomes vary with each cohort, but each is as impactful to their creators as those by Mandakh and Sorenson. The works of the 2021-22 class, for example, can be found in this journal .

And while DeSmet cares deeply about the quality of the finished projects, she cares just as much about the students’ experience as researchers and creators — one of the reasons she was chosen for the award.

According to the award committee, “Dr. Raissa DeSmet’s transformative teaching, marked by interdisciplinary exploration, empathy and prioritization of emotional well-being, establishes her as one of the most impactful professors at UW Bothell.”

Created in 1995, the Distinguished Teaching Award is presented each year to a faculty member who has demonstrated sustained excellence in teaching, exemplifying what it means to fulfill the academic mission of the University of Washington Bothell.

“Being a professor is my attempt at making a vocational life, like my mother and grandfather before me. It’s my way showing up and being of service,” said DeSmet. “It is an honor to do this work on our campus, with amazing colleagues who are so committed to teaching and to our students and communities.

“This award shows me that my labor — and my students’ labor — is seen and valued as part of this collective effort, and that is incredibly meaningful.”

Celebrate Dr. DeSmet and all the 2024 UW Awards of Excellence recipients who are being recognized for achievements in teaching, mentoring, public service and staff support. The awardees will be honored at a ceremony in Meany Hall at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 6. The program includes a one-hour ceremony hosted by UW President Ana Mari Cauce and Provost Tricia Serio, followed by a reception.

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'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

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When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

How to use ChatGPT to write code: What it can and can't do for you

One of the more intriguing discoveries about ChatGPT is that it can write pretty good code. I first tested this out last year when I asked it to write a WordPress plugin my wife could use on her website. ChatGPT did a fine job, but it was a very simple project.

How to use ChatGPT to write: Resumes | Excel formulas | Essays | Cover letters

So, how can you use ChatGPT to write code as part of your daily coding practice? Here's a quick summary:

ChatGPT can produce both useful and unusable code. For best results, provide clear and detailed prompts.
ChatGPT excels in assisting with specific coding tasks or routines, rather than building complete applications from scratch.
Use ChatGPT to find and choose the right coding libraries for specific purposes, and engage in an interactive discussion to narrow down options.
Be cautious about the ownership of AI-generated code and always verify the code's reliability. Don't blindly trust the generated output.
Treat interactions with ChatGPT as a conversation. Refine your questions based on the AI's responses to get closer to the desired output.

Now, let's explore ChatGPT in considerably more depth.

What types of coding can ChatGPT do well?

There are two important facts about ChatGPT and coding. The first is that the AI can, in fact, write useful code.

The second is that it can get completely lost, fall down a rabbit hole, chase its own tail, and produce unusable garbage.

Also: The best free AI courses

I found this out the hard way. After I finished the WordPress plugin, I decided to see how far ChatGPT could go.

I wrote out a very careful prompt for a Mac application, including detailed descriptions of user interface elements, interactions, what would be provided in settings, how they would work, and so on. Then, I fed the prompt to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT responded with a flood of text and code. Then, it stopped mid-code. When I asked it to continue, it vomited out even more code and text. I requested continue after continue, and it dumped out more and more code. But... none of it was usable . It didn't identify where the code should go, how to construct the project, and -- when I looked carefully at the code produced -- it left out major operations I requested, leaving in simple text descriptions stating "program logic goes here".

Also: Yikes! Microsoft Copilot failed every single one of my coding tests

After a bunch of repeated tests, it became clear to me that if you ask ChatGPT to deliver a complete application, it will fail. A corollary to this observation is that if you know nothing about coding and want ChatGPT to build you something, it will fail.

Where ChatGPT succeeds -- and does so very well -- is in helping someone who already knows how to code to build specific routines and get specific tasks done. Don't ask for an app that runs on the menu bar. But if you ask ChatGPT for a routine to put a menu on the menu bar, and then paste that into your project, the tool will do quite well.

Also, keep in mind that while ChatGPT appears to have a tremendous amount of domain-specific knowledge (and it often does), it lacks wisdom . As such, the tool may be able to write code, but it won't be able to write code containing the nuances for very specific or complex problems that require deep experience to understand.

Also: How to use ChatGPT to create an app

Use ChatGPT to demo techniques, write small algorithms, and produce subroutines. You can even get ChatGPT to help you break down a bigger project into chunks, and then you can ask it to help you code those chunks.

So, with that in mind, let's look at some specific steps for how ChatGPT can help you write code.

How to use ChatGPT to write code

1. narrow down and sharpen up your request.

This first step is to decide what you are going to ask of ChatGPT -- but not yet ask it anything. Decide what you want your function or routine to do, or what you want to learn about to incorporate into your code. Decide on the parameters you're going to pass into your code and what you want to get out. And then look at how you're going to describe it.

Also: How to write better ChatGPT prompts

Imagine you're paying a human programmer to do this task. Are you giving that person enough information to be able to work on your assignment? Or are you too vague and the person you're paying is more likely to either ask questions or turn in something entirely unrelated to what you want?

Here's an example. Let's say I want to be able to summarize any web page. I want to feed it something like this article and get back a short summary that's well-considered and appropriate. As my input, I'll specify a web page URL. As my output, it's a block of text with a summary.

2. Use ChatGPT to explore libraries and resources

Continuing with the example above, a very old school way of extracting web page data was to find the text between HTML paragraph tags.

But with the rise of AI tools , it makes more sense to use an AI library to do an intelligent extract and summary. One of the places ChatGPT excels (and it's also an area you can easily verify to avoid its authoritative-but-wrong behavior pattern) is finding libraries and resources.

Also: How to make ChatGPT provide sources and citations

OpenAI (the maker of ChatGPT) sells API access to the GPT-3 and GPT-4 engines that will do exactly what we want. But in the case of this example, let's assume we don't want to pay transaction fees.

So let's look at interacting with ChatGPT to figure out how to use such a tool, for free, with a project that runs in PHP.

I started with a prompt that was designed to elicit information about what libraries would provide the functionality I wanted. A library (for those of you reading along who aren't programmers) is a body of code a programmer can access that does a lot of the heavy lifting for a specific purpose. A big part of modern programming is finding and choosing the right libraries, so this is a good starting point.

In this case, I'm looking at blocks of code written by other people that will summarize text. Here's my first prompt:

Describe ten different open source AI libraries (and the languages they work with) that I can use to generate a summary of the main core contents of any web page, ignoring any ads or embedded materials.

This prompt gave me exactly what I wanted, including a mention of OpenAI's offerings. I think OpenAI would do great here, but for this hypothetical project, I don't want to budget for API fees. So. I'll narrow down the question:

Are any of these free?

ChatGPT hedged its bets with its answer. Here's what it said: "Yes, all ten of these AI libraries are open source and free to use. However, some of them may have usage limits or require payment for access to additional features or resources." So, based on that, I clarified my query:

Which of these libraries have no usage limits and don't require any additional payment or licensing?

Notice how this is very much a conversation. I don't have to re-ask the originating question. I'm just drilling down in the same way I might if I had an expert at hand and was seeking clarification. In this case, ChatGPT gave me eight library choices, but none of them mentioned the PHP language that I was planning to code in. So, here's the next prompt:

Of those 8 libraries, can I use any with PHP?

It returned three libraries, but I wasn't sure about what each did. So, another question:

What's the difference between Sumy, Gensim, and NLTK?

I still wasn't sure, so I clarified my use plan and then asked:

If I want to create summaries of web page news articles, which library would work better?

The answer I got was clear and promising: "Sumy is specifically designed for text summarization, which is the task of creating a summary that captures the most important information from a piece of text." So, now it was time to see what was involved in using Sumy with PHP. I asked my last question for this part of the project:

Can you explain how to use Sumy from PHP?

Feel free to play along on your computer and paste these prompts into your instance of ChatGPT. Notice that, in step one, I decided what program module I was going to get help on. Then, in this step, I had a conversation with ChatGPT to decide what library to use and how to integrate it into my project.

Also: The best AI chatbots

That may not seem like programming, but I assure you it is. Programming isn't just blasting lines of code onto a page. Programming is figuring out how to integrate all the various resources and systems together, and how to talk to all the various components of your solution. Here, ChatGPT helped me do that integration analysis.

By the way, I was curious whether Google's Gemini AI (formerly Bard) could help in the same way. Gemini can't actually write code, but it did give some extra insights into the planning aspect of programming over ChatGPT's responses. So, don't hesitate to use multiple tools to triangulate on answers you want. Here's that story: Gemini vs. ChatGPT: Can Gemini help you code? Since I wrote that article, Google added some coding capabilities to Gemini, but they're not all that great. You can read about it here: I tested Google Gemini's new coding skills. It didn't go well . And even more recently, I dug into Gemini Advanced . It's still not passing many tests.

Also: How I test an AI chatbot's coding ability - and you can too

Coding is next.

3. Ask ChatGPT to write example code

OK, let's pause here. This article is entitled "How to use ChatGPT to write code." And it will. But what we're really doing is asking ChatGPT to write example code.

Also: BASIC turns 60: Why simplicity was this programming language's blessing and its curse

Let's be clear: Unless you're writing a very small function (like the line sorter/randomizer ChatGPT wrote for my wife), ChatGPT isn't going to be able to write your final code. First, you're going to have to maintain it. ChatGPT is terrible at modifying already-written code. Terrible, as in, it doesn't do it. So, to get new code, you have to ask ChatGPT to generate something new. As I found previously, even if your prompt is virtually identical, ChatGPT may change what it gives you in very unexpected ways.

So, bottom line: ChatGPT can't maintain your code, or even tweak it.

That limitation means you have to do it yourself. As we know, the first draft of a piece of code is rarely the final code. So, even if you were to expect ChatGPT to generate final code, it would really be a starting point, one where you need to take it to completion, integrate it into your bigger project, test it, refine it, debug it, and so on.

Also: I asked ChatGPT to write a short Star Trek episode. It actually succeeded

But that doesn't mean the example code is worthless -- far from it. Let's take a look at a prompt I wrote based on the project I described earlier. Here's the first part:

Wite a PHP function called summarize_article. As input, summarize_article will be passed a URL to an article on a news-related site like ZDNET.com or Reuters.com.

I'm telling ChatGPT the programming language it should use. I'm also telling it the input but, while doing so, providing two sites as samples to help ChatGPT understand the style of article. Honestly, I'm not sure ChatGPT didn't ignore that bit of guidance. Next, I'll tell it how to do the bulk of the work:

Inside summarize_article, retrieve the contents of the web page at the URL provided. Using the library Sumy from within PHP and any other libraries necessary, extract the main body of the article, ignoring any ads or embedded materials, and summarize it to approximately 50 words. Make sure the summary consists of complete sentences. You can go above the 50 words to finish the last sentence, if necessary.

This is very similar to how I'd instruct an employee. I'd want that person to know that they weren't only restricted to Sumy. If they needed another tool, I wanted them to use it.

Also: How to get a perfect face match using Midjourney AI

I also specified an approximate number of words to create bounds for what I wanted as a summary. A later version of the routine might take that number as a parameter. I then ended by saying what I wanted as a result:

Once processing is complete, code summarize_article so it returns the summary in plain text.

The resulting code is pretty simple. ChatGPT did call on another library (Goose) to retrieve the article contents. It then passed that summary to Sumy with a 50-word limit and then returned the result. But once the basics are written, it's a mere matter of programming to go back in and add tweaks, customize what's passed to the two libraries, and delivering the results.

One interesting point of note. When I originally tried this test in early 2023, ChatGPT created a sample call to the routine it wrote, using a URL from after 2021. At that time, in March 2023, ChatGPT's dataset only went to 2021. Now, the ChatGPT knowledge base extends to the end of December 2023. But my point is that ChatGPT made up a sample link that it couldn't possibly know about:

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/teslas-musk-says-fremont-california-factory-may-be-sold-chip-shortage-bites-2022-03-18/

I checked that URL against both Reuters' site and the Wayback Machine, and it doesn't exist. Never assume ChatGPT is accurate. Always double-check everything it gives you.

Does ChatGPT replace programmers?

Not now -- or, at least -- not yet. ChatGPT programs at the level of a talented first-year programming student, but it's lazy (like that first-year student). The tool might reduce the need for entry-level programmers, but at its current level, I think it will just make life easier for entry-level programmers (and even programmers with more experience) to write code and look up information. It's definitely a time-saver, but there are few programming projects it can do on its own -- at least now. In 2030? Who knows.

How do I get coding answers in ChatGPT?

Just ask it. You saw above how I used an interactive discussion dialog to narrow down the answers I wanted. When you're working with ChatGPT, don't expect one question to magically do all your work for you. But use ChatGPT as a helper and resource, and it will give you a lot of very helpful information. Of course, test that information -- because, as John Schulman, a co-founder of OpenAI, says , "Our biggest concern was around factuality, because the model likes to fabricate things."

Is the code generated by ChatGPT guaranteed to be error-free?

Hell, no! But you also can't trust the code human programmers write. I certainly don't trust any code I write. Code comes out of the code-making process incredibly flawed. There are always bugs. Before you ship, you need to test, test, and test again. Then, alpha test with a few chosen victims. Then beta test with your wider user community. Even after all that, there will be bugs. Just because an AI is playing at this coding thing doesn't mean it can do bug-free code. Do not trust. Always verify. And you still won't have it fully bug-free. Such is the nature of the universe.

How detailed should my description of a programming issue be when asking ChatGPT?

Detailed. Look at it this way: the more you leave open for interpretation, the more the AI will go its own way. When I give prompts to ChatGPT to help me while programming, I imagine I'm assigning a programming task to one of my students or someone who works for me. Did I give that person enough details to go off and create a first draft or will that person have to ask me a ton of additional questions? Worse, will that person have so little guidance that they'll go off in entirely the wrong direction? Don't be lazy here. ChatGPT can save you hours or even days programming (it has for me), but only if you give it useful instructions to begin with.

If I use ChatGPT to write my code, who owns it?

As it turns out, there's not a lot of case law yet to definitively answer this question. The US, Canada, and the UK require something that's copyrighted to have been created by human hands, so code generated by an AI tool may not be copyrightable. There are also issues of liability based on where the training code came from and how the resulting code is used. ZDNET did a deep dive on this topic, spoke to legal experts, and produced the following three articles. If you're concerned about this issue (and if you're using AI to help with code, you should be), I recommend you give them a read.

Who owns the code? If ChatGPT's AI helps write your app, does it still belong to you?
If you use AI-generated code, what's your liability exposure?
A thorny question: Who owns code, images, and narratives generated by AI?

What programming languages does ChatGPT know?

Most of them. I tested common modern languages , like PHP, Python, Java, Kotlin, Swift, C#, and more. But then I had the tool write code in obscure dark-age languages like COBOL, Fortran, Forth, LISP, ALGOL, RPG (the report program generator, not the role-playing game), and even IBM/360 assembly language.

As the icing on the cake, I gave it this prompt:

Write a sequence that displays 'Hello, world' in ascii blinking lights on the front panel of a PDP 8/e

The PDP 8/e was my very first computer , and ChatGPT actually gave me instructions for toggling in a program using front-panel switches. I was impressed, gleeful, and ever so slightly afraid.

Can ChatGPT help me with data analysis and visualization tasks?

Yes, and a lot of it can be done without code. Check out my entire article on this topic: The moment I realized ChatGPT Plus was a game-changer for my business .

I also did a piece on generated charts and tables: How to use ChatGPT to make charts and tables

But here's where it gets fun. In the article above, I asked ChatGPT Plus "Make a bar chart of the top five cities in the world by population," and it did. But do you want code? Try asking:

Make a bar chart of the top five cities in the world by population in Swift. Pull the population data from online. Be sure to include any necessary libraries.

By adding "in Swift," you're specifying the programming language. By specifying where the data comes from and forcing ChatGPT Plus to include libraries, it knows to bring in the other resources the program needs. That's why, fundamentally, programming with an AI's help requires you to know things about programming. But if you do, it's cool. Because three sentences can get you a nice chunk of annotated code. Cool, huh?

How does ChatGPT handle the differences between dialects and implementations of a given programming language?

We don't have exact details on this issue from OpenAI, but our understanding of how ChatGPT is trained can shed some light on this question. Keep in mind that dialects and implementations of programming languages (and their little quirks) change much more rapidly than the full language itself. This reality makes it harder for ChatGPT (and many programming professionals) to keep up.

Also: How I used ChatGPT to write a custom JavaScript bookmarklet

As such, I'd work off these two assumptions:

The more recent the dialectic change, the less likely ChatGPT knows about it, and
The more popular a language overall, the more training data it likely has learned from, and therefore the more accurate it will be.

What's the bottom line? ChatGPT can be a very helpful tool. Just don't ascribe superpowers to it. Yet.

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz , on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz , on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz , and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV .

Code faster with generative AI, but beware the risks when you do

How to use chatgpt (and what you can use it for), how i test an ai chatbot's coding ability - and you can too.

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Open the document and turn on the Track Changes mode. But if we were writing for someone new to Word, we might break this down more: 1. Double click the document icon to open it in Microsoft Word. 2. Go to the Review tab on the main ribbon. 3. Find the "Tracking" section and click the "Track Changes" button.
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7.7 Writing Instructions

Preliminary Steps

1. Do a careful audience and task analysis

2. Determine the number of tasks

3. Determine the best approach to the step-by-step discussion

4. Design groupings of tasks

Common Sections in Instructions

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