Life Tutorials: How to Write a How To

[Furen]

Throughout life, there are times when you believe that you are qualified to teach others how to do things. Often, you check through the internet and see that there are no good options as to doing those things. When that happens, armed with knowledge, you are one equipped to help others out.

To write a tutorial, you will need:
- A subject for the tutorial
- General knowledge of the subject selected
- Proper grammatical skills and spelling in the language you choose to write in (optional, but this greatly makes or breaks a person's ability to understand the topic at hand)

Step One
Find out if there is a tutorial that exists on the subject already. If there is none, then there is no fear of competition. If one is already existing, take time to read through their material so that you can make your tutorial better than the other tutorials. The better your tutorial is, the better others will understand it, and the better future tutorials for the subject will become.

Step Two
Write out a list of requirements for the subject at hand. It would do your readers no good to follow a tutorial on knitting if they do not have knitting needles or thread. Make sure that you have given all required and optional items at the top of your tutorial for the convenience of those reading.

Step Three
Write out a procedural list, based on the chronological events that must take place. You may not, for example, need to use an oven in a cooking tutorial until step seven, but if the oven needs to be hot, tell them to preheat it prior to step seven. Separate each step clearly, by either numbering each step or by writing out the steps and clearly marking them. (This tutorial uses the latter, with underlining)

Step Four
Complete the tutorial. Write out the entire list of steps that must be done.

Step Five (optional)
Add extra tips and tricks at the end to make the experience more helpful if relevant to your tutorial.

Step Six (optional)
To be a good tutorial, one must be willing to edit and correct any false information, typos, or improvements if applicable.

Tips and Tricks
- Additional information goes here.
- Formatting makes things look nicer and cleaner, so do so when you can.
- Minimize difficult words, so more people can understand the tutorial.

At the end, it's nice to have some closing remarks and help people know that your tutorial is done. You're done. Happy tutorializing.

[shooraijin]

Very meta.

[Furen]

I thought so. I figure if I'm going to periodically write tutorials for whatever, I may as well make a standard for myself. I'm bound to forget, so it may be a wise idea to have a template.