How to Write Technical Documents

Technical writing is the transfer of a specific thing from the writer's head into the target reader's head, using words as a lossy medium. This paper teaches the method for performing that transfer. The method is a loop: identify the payload, pick the target, encode against the target's dictionary, commit to falsifiable claims, cut what doesn't carry payload, simulate the reader's encounter with the text, filter feedback against the target, and maintain the master document as the authoritative reference from which derivatives are produced. Each step is a specific technical operation with pass/fail criteria. The failures that dominate current technical writing — hedging, fog vocabulary, fancy vocabulary, humility performance, numbers around vagueness, padding — are violations of specific steps in this loop, and can be identified and repaired by reference to the step they violate. The paper is written to the ideal reader: someone who can decompress the full argument without accommodation, who is willing to replace their current model of writing with the one presented here, and who will practice the loop rather than remember its components.