Differences Between Technical and Creative Writing

Differences Between Technical & Creative Writing

Writing can be grouped into five basic types: technical, creative, expressive, expository, and persuasive. To help understand technical writing, it may help to compare it to the other types.

• Technical writing conveys specific information about a technical subject to a specific audience for a specific purpose.
  
• Creative writing is fiction—poetry, short stories, plays, and novels—and is most different from technical writing.
  
• Expressive writing is a subjective response to a personal experience—journals and diaries—whereas technical writing might be objective observations of a work-related experience or research.
  
• Expository writing “exposes” a topic analytically and objectively, such as news reports. Like technical writing, the goal of expository writing is to explain or reveal knowledge, but expository writing does not necessarily expect a response or action from the reader.
  
• Persuasive writing depends on emotional appeal. Its goal is to change attitudes or motivate to action.

Writing in the Workplace