Difference Between Technical Writing and Literary Writing

There are two major styles of writing including technical writing and literary writing. These two writing styles are adopted all over the world by the authors irrespective the difference of their language. The basic purpose of writing is to communicate your ideas to the readers or your target audience. Write-ups always have a target audience and the writing style depends on the subject and the purpose of writing. Both technical writing and literary writing styles are different from each other in many aspects including the objectives and the tone of writing.

Technical writing is basically chosen by technical experts or scientists for writing on technical subjects like user manuals about a technology like cell phones etc. On the other hand, literary writing is all about teaching people in a way that involves emotions and feelings. Technical writing provides information to a specific audience while literary writing is for general people without the restrictions of age and gender and demographics. The basic objective of technical writing is to direct readers to act in a specific manner but literary writing has no such objectives because, after reading a literary piece of writing, all readers think differently according to their level of understanding. Technical writing is straight forward and to the point in which the writer does not include unnecessary details. On the contrary, literary writing is all about the personal opinion of the writer in which he tries to touch the feelings or emotions of the readers. Technical writing does not come under the category of fiction while fiction is a major part of literary writing. Technical writing gives importance to logical aspects of scientific inventions or other technical gadgets while literary writing’s most important characteristic is humanism, not logical reasoning.

Instructions

  • 1

    Technical Writing:



    The technical experts and scientists always use technical writing in order to teach their target audience about a specific thing. Technical writing is always to the point and the writer cannot include his or her subjective opinion in it. User manuals, white papers, press releases and product description are the most common examples of technical writing.

    - Image courtesy: documentationexpress.com

  • 2

    Literary Writing:



    Literary writing is all about the personal observation and experiences of the author and he produces a piece of writing in order to touch the emotions or feelings of the readers. Humanism is the most important characteristic of literary writing. It can be in the form of lyrics and prose that comes under the category of fiction. There is an aesthetical touch or appeal in the literary writing that produces emotions in the readers.

    - Image courtesy: writebynight.net

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


three + = 10