The four kinds of documentation, and why you need to understand what they are (2024)

FAQs

The four kinds of documentation, and why you need to understand what they are? ›

They are: tutorials, how-to guides, technical reference and explanation. They represent four different purposes or functions, and require four different approaches to their creation. Understanding the implications of this will help improve most documentation - often immensely.

Although there are many explicit purposes for creating a scientific or technical document, there are four general categories: to provide information, to give instructions, to persuade the reader, and to enact (or prohibit) something.

I like to refer to these key terms as the 4 Cs: and these Cs stand for "Clear, Concise, Coherent, and Correct. Every effective piece of technical writing should have the characteristics of the 4 Cs. Think about the first "C", clear.

Documentation is essential to quality and process control

There needs to be some level of cohesion so that you don't look sloppy or uninformed. Documentation encourages knowledge sharing, which empowers your team to understand how processes work and what finished projects typically look like.

The Documentation System

There is a secret that needs to be understood in order to write good software documentation: there isn't one thing called documentation, there are four. They are: tutorials, how-to guides, technical reference and explanation.

Definition of documentation

Documentation can relate to two different types: products and processes. Product documentation describes the product under development and provides guidelines on how to execute actions with it. Process documentation, on the other hand, relates to all the material created during development.

These principles are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Design trends and choices change over time.

The 21st century learning skills are often called the 4 C's: critical thinking, creative thinking, communicating, and collaborating. These skills help students learn, and so they are vital to success in school and beyond.

What are the 4 C principles? ›

The 4Cs, or the four pillars of the marketing mix, are a modern twist on the traditional 4 P's. These principles focus on customer value, convenience, communication, and cost-efficiency. As a result, marketing campaigns must be designed around customer value. Listed below are some of the benefits of using the 4C's.

Your documentation must be precise and coherent so others can understand. Vague and obscure documentations can lead to misinterpretation. Documentation should be specific and individualized to each client. Your documentation should balance being comprehensive and concise.

If the reader doesn't quickly understand the purpose for the document, the information seems irrelevant, and therefore illogical. Indeed, the purpose statement is the most important sentence in the document.

Document Understanding is designed to help you combine different approaches to extract information from multiple document types. The main aim is to make the process of extracting data as easy as possible: creating one single workflow that will extract data from a variety of documents.

The Documentation System

They are: tutorials, how-to guides, technical reference and explanation. They represent four different purposes or functions, and require four different approaches to their creation. Understanding the implications of this will help improve most documentation - often immensely.

This situation is often the result of not allowing adequate time for documenting at the planning stage or not starting the documentation task early enough in the project lifecycle. So how does your project or process documentation stack up against the 3 C's of compliance, consistency and completeness?