Instruction Writing: The In's and Outs

What are Instructions?

Instructions are everywhere, they are in your day-to-day life, your job, in anything you do. But what are instructions? According to David McMurrey in Instructions Tell them how to do it!, "instructions are those step-by-step explanations of how to do something: how to build, operate, repair, or maintain things." (McMurrey, 2022). Having the ability to understand instructions is vital in be
ing able to do things. You will need to know how to do your job in your field of study. For example, in the nursing field, nurses need to know how to do many things, administer medications, insert IVs, apply bandages, draw blood, perform assessments, and simple procedures like EKGs. Each of these tasks has instructions whether verbal or written.

Writing Instructions

All instructions have one thing in common, they all explain how to do something. In order to accomplish this, they must be clear and concise, and the writer must have knowledge of the procedure, task, or item being written about. As the writer you need to be able to picture the process step by step to write it down for others to be able to read, understand and ultimately perform the tasks correctly and efficiently.

The Structure of Instructions

Audience and situation. One step that must be determined early on is who the audience will be and the situation in which the instructions will be received. Nurses will most likely be in a medical setting and will understand medical terminology or "jargon" of how to perform a medical procedure like giving a shot. Whereas a mechanic would not understand the same instructions in the same wording. Making sure that your instructions are nonspecific to be read and acted on by any person makes it easier to ensure they are clear and easy to read.

Number of tasks. Knowing the number of tasks in your instructions and grouping them accordingly makes instructions easier to understand and follow. Some procedures or tasks will have only a few instructions and others will have multiple instructions that must be broken down further into smaller groupings to be understood. 

Best approach to the step-by-step discussion. Determining what approach for your instructions is best is an important process to further the opportunity to be understood. Choosing a task approach or tools approach will depend on what you are trying to explain to the reader. A task approach would be used to explain how to do something such as use a voicemail, while using a tools approach would be used to explain what tools to use to use a specific machine.

Grouping of tasks. If you find yourself with pages and pages of instructions for your task or procedure, then breaking them down further into similar categories, such as beginning, middle, and end like a book will help your audience follow along and be able to break long instructions into sections and not get lost. 

Common Sections of Instructions

Most instructions will include in some form an introduction, a list of tools or supplies needed, headings to break instructions into sections, the instructions, and any graphics that may be useful in helping to understand the instructions.

Final Question

Thinking of your field and after reading what is needed to write instructions do you think you could write instructions for a new employee? Would they be able to understand and act them out?

Links:

McMurrey, D. (2022). Instructions. Online Technical Writing: Instructions. https://mcmassociates.io/textbook/instrux.html

Posted: March 24, 2024

Category: Instructional