How to Write a "How To" Article
Posted: Saturday, October 01, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
I received an assignment to write a “How To,” article. That’s an article that explains to the reader how to do something; like how to bake a cake, how to change the oil in your car, how to gut a dead deer, or how to build a bomb. “How To” articles usually aren’t literary or verbose. Concise, precise language is much more appropriate than rambling ‘chatter.’ There might be some room in a “How To” article for side bars, comments and examples or anecdotes, but you don’t want to confuse or distract the reader with superfluous jabber. I have a tendency to do that. People frequently tell me that I like to hear myself talk. It spills over into my writing sometimes. So, I have to carefully think about how to accomplish the assignment.
So, I guess, first, you’d better know what you’re talking about. How can you explain to somebody ‘how to,’ if you don’t know how to yourself? I suppose you could write down what you do while your trying to learn how to, but that would use up a lot of paper with mistake corrections. It would be better if you knew how to, real well, then tried to explain it.
Do it a couple of times taking notes. If you know how to do it real well, you might accidentally skip telling some things. You have to be real specific, too. You can’t just say, “Put the little round thing-a-ma-jig in the round hole.” You have to be sure somebody who’s never seen a thing-a-ma-jig before knows which one you mean, and which hole. That’s where it helps to have pictures or drawings.
Second, you’ve got to get it all down on paper in an outline first. Don’t just start typing way. I guarantee you’ll skip something, or get something out of order and mess up the whole thing, especially if you have a picture or numbers to refer to. When you go to make the corrections, you’ll forget to change a number, or mix them up and the poor reader will be all screwed up. I got instructions like that with a complicated Christmas toy made in El Salvador, once. My friend, Jose, said the Spanish instructions made sense, though.
Third, try it out before you publish it. I don’t mean, you do it, reading your own “How To” instructions. I mean, get someone else to try it. See if you can find an idiot (I can give you a couple of phone numbers if you have trouble finding one). If an idiot can do it, you know you’ve done a good job. Let the other person read the instructions. Don't read it to them. I don’t know how many times I’ve missed a blatant mistake in an essay, just read right over it, because I knew what it was supposed to say and never saw it.
Finally, read and re-read the instructions looking for any confusing language or imprecise terms. Sometimes you’ll have to add an extra sentence or two to make what you’re trying to say perfectly clear. Assume the person knows absolutely nothing at all about what you’re trying to tell them how to do, (or about tools, technology, the American way-- about anything you understand to be common knowledge). Assume the person is a complete idiot on top of that. Write so that person will understand 'how to' and you'll be successful.
Well, I think I’ve thought enough about how to approach my assignment to write a “How To” article. Now the problem is what to write it about. I can’t recycle one of my old ones under a different title. That would be cheating. When I was on that kick, I pretty much wrote about everything I know how to do, though. Oh, well, I’ve got most of the week to come up with something. Besides, it’s not like I’m in school or anything. I don’t have to do it. I could just skip the assignment this week and see what she comes up with next.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)I think your title should be "how to put myself off writing a how-to article!"Thanks for reading and commenting
Outstanding. I have no further questions and I clearly now know 'how to' write a 'how to' article. Thank you Jack for breaking it all down and making it so simple even an idiot can do it!Hey, pal! Thanks
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