Gain insights into technical writing, audience analysis, creating coherent paragraphs, iterative improvement, and mastering parts of speech and punctuation for impactful and well-structured communication.

The ability to structure your thoughts and write in a way that is both compelling and easy to follow is an essential skill in your corporate journey. Good writing can help you project a positive image and convince people.

This course starts by introducing you to technical writing how it differs from the other forms of writing, and the importance of understanding your audience. You’ll learn how to write meaningful and easy-to-follow sentences and bring these sentences together to create coherent paragraphs. The review-revise-edit process is covered next to emphasize the importance of improving your material iteratively. The course ends with a detailed discussion of the parts of speech and punctuation so that you can write well and avoid common mistakes.

By the end of the course, you will be able to write according to the needs and expectations of your audience. Your writing will be impactful and well-structured, and you will have in-depth knowledge of technical writing concepts.

Grokking the Technical Writing Process

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One of the easiest ways to catch inconsistent tensing is by reading your writing aloud. Even if your eyes don't catch any errors, your ears certainly will!

Take a look at the chart below which converts the same sentence into each tense.




## Past tense

Past tense generally follows the rule of adding -d or -ed to the end of the verb, aside from irregular verbs, which we will cover in the next section. 

### Simple past tense
The **simple past tense** describes an action that took place in the past and no longer occurs. Below are some examples of how we can shift sentences to be in the past tense:

* Example → "When I *was* little, I *played* in the garden." 

> This sentence contains two past tense verbs, *"was"* and *"little."* 

* Example → "I *enjoyed* math in college." 
* Example → "I *went* to the swimming pool." 

### Past continuous

The **past continuous tense** implies that something was continuously or progressively happening in the past. This tense is formed using the following formula:

**was/were** + **present participle (verb ending in *-ing*)**


Let's look at some examples:

* Example → "They *were going* to the mountains every weekend that winter." 
* Example → "I *was reading* a book when the alarm went off." 

### Past perfect

The **past perfect tense** communicates that an event took place before another event in the past. It is also sometimes referred to as the **pluperfect tense**.

**had** + **past participle** 

Let's look at some examples:

* Example → "They *had closed* the doors before we arrived." 
* Example → "The movie *had begun* before we got there."


### Past perfect continuous

The **past perfect continuous tense** conveys that something began in the past, was continuously happening in the past, and stopped at some point in the past. Here is the construction:

**had been** + **#key# present participle: the root of the verb + -ing i.e., running, jumping, and swimming. #key#**

Let's look at some examples:

* Example → "They *had been swimming* in the pool when it began to rain." 
* Example → "I *had been studying* for my exam when I found out it got cancelled!"

Learn about the various verb tenses and the proper way to use each tense.

Tenses	Subcategory
Past	Simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous.
Present	Simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous
Future	Simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous

Introduction to Technical Writing

How to Get Started

How to Use Common Punctuation Correctly

How to Write a Good Sentence

How to Write a Good Paragraph

How to Review, Revise, and Edit

Conclusion

Appendix A. Parts of Speech (Recommended for ESL Writers)

Appendix B. Punctuation Continued (Recommended for ESL Writers)

Test Your Skills!

Verb Tenses

Verb tenses

Past tense

Simple past tense