Various tasks must precede the actual writing. This is especially true for any technical writing project. Drawing from the experience of writing and publishing a wide range of technical literature for clients working in the applied sciences, the writers of these notes have analyzed the steps required. Estimating the work required for a given project has always meant preparing a work plan. How much research, interviewing, travelling, writing, editing and production work is needed? It is not an easy task, but an essential one for the work content to be estimated. In preparation for writing an operating manual for a nuclear power station it was necessary to cross-check and analyze the regulations and industry standards, a job that took 1600 hours to accomplish.

On average, it is a reasonable estimate that research and preparation to writing is in the ratio of four to one. Whatever the project, a work plan is essential. This means knowing the writing objective. Specifically, to undertake any writing project, one must have a writing objective. What is an objective, the purpose, intent or aim of a project? Examples, to:

Another broad approach to any project is the need to a) answer five questions; b) prepare a work estimate; and c) set a schedule.

In Serving Men, Rudyard Kipling named the five essential questions for obtaining information. They are known as the five W's, which are the stock-in-trade of newspaper reporters, for the answers form the basis of any news report. Those five are the What? Why? When? Where? and Who? 

Writers should ask themselves the same questions. Answer them and the ingredients for a good technical report are at hand. Here are some subsidiary questions that stem from the main ones.

What: what is the objective? What will achieve it? What information is needed? What is the involvement of others? What resources are available? What is the schedule? These are obvious question, but not the only ones. Depending on the nature of the project, others may come to mind. List these questions and put them in order later. Question whether the question is in the what, why, when where or who category.

Why: why is the report, document, analysis needed? Is it to inform, persuade, obtain approval or meet a need or directive?

When: when is the document needed? When will there be time to write it?

Where: where is the information needed to come from?

Who: who will read the document? Who can contribute information? who must be consulted? Who will check the report.

To these basic questions, one could also ask 'how questions': how much work is involved? How urgent is the project? How is it to be worked in with other tasks?

Given this list, the last thing a writer needs to know is the speed at which one writes. This varies from writer to writer. Nevertheless, to give some idea of the rate at which to produce a draft text, an exceptional writer churn out 4,000 words a day. Others manage only 1,000 words or less in an eight-hour working day. The average output is probably between 2,000 and 2,500 words daily.

Knowing the rate of output of technical writing is important for cost estimating purposes. It is all very well for the successful fiction writer who enjoys a $40,000 to $50,000 and more advance and has all the time in the world to produce the next Booker or Orange prize novel. This luxury is not available to the technical writer who works to a deadline for a living, competes with other writers for available writing work, or who is employed by a publisher specializing in technical publishing or a large enterprise.

As earlier noted, the ratio of preparatory work – the research, etc. – to the actual writing is about 4 to 1. Therefore, at a rate of, say, 2,500 words and the report is estimated to be that length, the project will take five days to complete. This would be the total time, not necessarily the elapsed time. For estimating purposes, this is a rule of thumb only. It would be necessary for each writer to measure his or her own rate of writing and adjust the calculations. What is the size of a 2,500-word text? A good question. Here we are on firmer ground.

The standard letter sheet use in North America is 8.5"  x 11" (216 × 279 mm). Double-spaced copy on the standard sheet, using Courier 12 pt typestyle gives 25 lines of text averaging 10 words per line. Therefore a standard letter size takes 250 words of text. This is about ten pages of manuscript for a 2500-word text. [Note: An ISO A4  letter sheet, which is standard 'letter' size outside North America takes an extra line, so for estimating purposes there is no difference between the two standards.]

Translating the total work effort of the stages given to write a 2,500-word report, the breakdown in hours would be something like this:

In our experience, the main uncertainty of a writing schedule lies in the work expected of others. When progress depends on the client, higher management or colleagues the work schedule might be drawn out longer than either expected or estimated. In practice, the longer a project takes to complete the higher its cost.

As to the duration of work, projects can take as little as a week to years in the case of revision to government and industry regulations, the preparation of manuals, revision of operating and maintenance procedures, and works of reference. All of these types of writing projects are the subject of 'requests for proposals' (RFPs) from large organisations in the government and private sector.

Writing a work plan might not be necessary for small jobs. A 2,500 word manuscript is about the size of an average length of an article for publication in a journal. For larger projects – a manual or conference paper, say – a work plan is essential. Fees for writing projects range from a minimum of $2,500 to $4m plus (£1,200 to £2m plus).

As important as the work plan is, remember that the end product is the report, procedure, policy, regulation, specification or any one of a plethora of writing jobs put out to tender. Learn to strike a balance between the preparation and the actual writing, for it is easy to blithely go on researching and never getting any writing done as frequently happens in departments of all levels of government.