About This Document

The Espressif Technical Writing Guidelines are a comprehensive resource for creating clear, consistent, and professional technical documentation. Designed specifically for Espressif’s needs, these guidelines help writers, editors, and reviewers produce high-quality content that enhances readability, ensures consistency, and reflects our commitment to excellence.

Target Audience

This guide is intended for the following roles, as well as anyone involved in creating or maintaining Espressif technical documentation:

• Technical writers

• Editors

• Translators

• Reviewers

• Approvers

Learning Objectives

This guide will help you develop essential technical writing skills, enabling you to create clear and effective documentation. After completing this guide, you will be able to:

• Apply correct grammar rules, including the use of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and articles.

• Define and use terms consistently, and handle acronyms properly.

• Write in active voice and minimize the use of passive voice.

• Avoid unnecessary use of will/will not in future tense.

• Construct clear sentences by attending to sentence structure and the logical flow of ideas.

• Create shorter sentences by focusing on one idea and removing unnecessary words.

• Avoid Chinglish by correcting improper collocations and sentence structures.

• Write focused paragraphs with strong opening sentences and clear topics.

• Structure documents to improve readability, including audience-focused content and progressive disclosure.

• Use lists, tables, and figures effectively to enhance clarity.

• Write, edit, and review for accuracy, completeness, consistency, clarity, usability, and compliance.

While becoming a skilled technical writer requires time and practice, this guide will help you improve your writing and lay a solid foundation for continued growth in technical communication.

How to Use This Guide

Navigate the Guide

• Foundational Topics: Start with sections on Grammar, Words, Active Voice, and Future Tense to build a solid writing foundation.

• Intermediate Topics: Focus on Clear Sentences, Short Sentences, and Avoid Common Chinglish to refine your writing skills.

• Advanced Topics: Dive into Paragraphs, Documents, Lists, Tables, and Figures, and Technical Documentation Quality Criteria for effective document structure and clarity.

Use this guide as a reference to address specific writing challenges and improve your skills progressively.

Read Together with EMoS

The Espressif Manual of Style (EMoS) is a companion document to the Espressif Technical Writing Guidelines. While this document focuses on the principles of clear and readable technical writing, the EMoS provides detailed guidance on document style and formatting. To ensure consistent style, tone, and structure in all Espressif documentation, read both documents together.

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