The three main steps of technical writing are prewriting, writing, and rewriting. The purpose of prewriting is to figure out the purpose of your writing and to determine what goals you want to accomplish with the purpose. It also helps to keep your audience in mind. In the writing portion you will put into words all of the items you have brainstormed about. And in the final step you will rewrite your document to make sure that it makes the most sense possible and that it is formatted correctly.
For this particular scenario I would use the prewriting step to brainstorm the different ideas I would like to convey. I would write down the different things that will be discussed in the manual, such as the benefits and purpose of the software, how to install it and how it is used. By doing this step you can see an outline of the major items you are going to discuss. During the prewriting step it would be advisable to take into consideration your audience so that when you sit down to write your draft you will not have to rewrite it more than once because the target audience is off. Researching would also be a very important step to do during prewriting.
The next step would be writing. This is where you will put everything you brainstormed about into format. For this scenario you would organize your information to first explain the benefits and uses of the software. The next step would be to explain how to install the software and finally you would explain the steps needed to use the software. When you are all done with your writing make sure you double check all of your formatting. Make sure that you have run a spelling and grammar check and that any main titles or subtitles are in their correct size formats.
The final step would be to rewrite. In this step you will reread everything you have written and take notes as to vague areas so that you can fill them in so that they make sense. This is also the step where you add anything you might have left out in the...