I wrote this guide to writing how-to guides in Spring of 2026 for a Technical Communications class at Central New Mexico Community College. After receiving incredible feedback and being asked if the professor could use my guide for an example for future classes, I realized this was actually a pretty good guide, so I’m reposting it. This guide is completely original, written 100% by my human hands. As I do not own the images used throughout the guide, I have removed them. They were all CC0 or otherwise available for fair-use, but I require all content hosted on this site to be published as CC-BY-NC-SA. Sorry folks.

Additionally, all citations throughout link to an archived version of the citations page from the original draft of the guide. Maybe (probably not) I’ll fix that to all be local later. Don’t bank on it.

Meta-Introduction:

The purpose of this [guide] is to serve as an explanation of and guide to creating How-To guides. In general, How-To guides stand in contrast to technical instruction manuals and tutorials. While they share many aspects in their guiding nature, the goal of a How-To is more general and is designed for someone with relevant expertise. A How-To guide is not meant to be a step-by-step walkthrough, but instead offers pointers and guidance. ^[1]
According to USNH Technical Writing Essentials Ch7.7 writers should avoid the passive voice in instructional-type documents and address the reader directly, as such “you” language will be used throughout. ^[2]

Introduction:

Writing a How-To guide can be a rewarding way to learn or share a new method or process. In the following pages we will discuss an overview of how to produce How-To guides. This guide is intended for experienced technical writers, but may be helpful to writers of any level. [This section truncated to remove no longer relevant information]

Know Your Audience

I Spy… My Reader

When you think about who your How-To guide is being written for, who or what comes to mind? These types of guides are for experts and experienced nonspecialists[1]. You might consider a Mechanic or a Musician, who needs a How-To to tune a given car or instrument. You may consider a doctor, nurse or pharmacist, who needs a How-To for a new modality of vaccine. You may consider a developer who needs a How-To to make a website.

Examples by Audience

A How-To guide written for car maintenence might only include a list of items to check, and how often. A How-To guide written for configuring a new television might look like a “Quick Start” pamphlet. A How-To guide for playing a song might only include a chord progression and tempo. Remember not to overburden your guide with information. It is intended for experienced readers, not absolute beginners.

Casting a Wider Net?

Some How-To guides are written for everyone, however these are rare. When addressing every possible reader, it is important to include a “How to use this document” page (eg. Arch Wiki – Help:Reading) to ensure even a complete beginner can read it effectively. When doing so be sure to avoid technical jargon [or sufficiently define terms] to maintain clarity throughout.

Gathering Information

Know Your Stuff

As with any factual document, it is imperative you do research before beginning your writing. Make sure you are gathering your information from reliable sources. Academic texts, peer-reviewed journals, and credible websites. are all excellent sources of information.[3] Organizations often have access to peer-reviewed journals in their field; check with yours or request access from publishers or authors. If you are writing a How-To guide for a product, check any documentation which its manufacturer may have included.

Plagiarism is Theft

To prevent violating intellectual property laws, you must cite your sources. The format you use to cite your sources is usually up to you. Some excellent options that comply with modern writing formats are available at Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab. While they can be helpful, be wary of citation generators which can add extraneous details or may have formatting issues.

Drafting

Don’t Build on Quicksand

Much like a house, your How-To guide needs a structural foundation to work from. A simple way to create this foundation for your How-To guide, called an “outline”, is to write down each major step as a preliminary section. Arrange them in the order you would follow the steps.

Start Like Decoupage

Much like papier mâché or decoupage, you can begin your draft by cutting and pasting snippets of information onto your outline. At this point, things like flow, grammar and spelling are not important. Just worry about fully documenting the information that needs to be included in your How-To guide. Graphics can be helpful in conveying data visually, or linking an idea to an image^[5], consider experimenting with them to see if they fit with your content here.

First Revisions

Before moving on to the next steps, take some time to adjust your draft. Make sure the information within says what you think it does. Adjust your flow and check your tone. A basic check for grammar and spelling at this stage is in order. Next you will hand off your How-To to a peer or colleague.

The Peer Review Process

Humans now optional…

The peer review process can be daunting if you have never participated before. It is the best way to get real world feedback about your How-To guide from actual readers. By having somebody else read your guide you can be sure it conveys the information you think it does. A second set of eyes on your How-To is crucial when looking for mistakes or when seeking needed edits^[6]. If peer review from a human is impossible, or you don’t believe your document is ready for peer review by a human, AI Chat-Bots can be a good first reviewer (just remember to vet their suggestions carefully).

But Nothing Beats Human Review…

Begin by introducing yourself in your community of reviewers. Discuss what you want review to look like, asking specific questions about the content, and reviewing the types of strategies you want your reviewers to employ^[6]. Identify some useful standard by which reviewers can gauge if your guide meets its goal.

Revisions

Time to Make Some Changes

Peer review is great, but it is a complete waste of time if you do not revise your guide afterwards. Once your reviewers have returned your work to you with feedback, weigh the feedback against your guide and make changes that seem appropriate. You should expect to do this step multiple times.

At this stage pay attention to spelling and grammar, also ensure your guide adequately (and accurately) conveys information. A helpful self-review technique for this stage is to read your guide one sentence at a time in reverse order. This allows you to confirm the correctness of your guide without considerations like ‘word flow’ overshadowing accuracy.^[7]

Collaborative Options

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Downtime…

In the age of information, we are not limited by how many people can write on one page of paper at a time any longer. With services like Nextcloud Office, Google Workspaces, and Microsoft 365: multiple people can now work on the same document simultaneously, and see live updates of each-other’s changes. This type of synchronous collaborative writing can help with quickly producing high quality work and is worth considering in scenarios which allow for more active cooperation.

Conclusion

It’s Pretty Simple Stuff

Writing a How-To guide is easy stuff, if you know what to do. Identify your audience, research your guide, build your outline, glue on your facts, intersperse graphics to help convey ideas, polish and reshape from there. Repeat the polish a few times with help and feedback then you should be on your way quickly to a great How-To guide.

Citations

This How-To guide was compiled with help from the following resources:

1. https://www.diataxis.fr/tutorials-how-to/
2. Arch wiki – Help:Reading
3. CNM Open Education Resources – English 1210 – Ch 12
4. Purdue OWL: Research and Citation
5. USNH – Technical Writing Essentials – Writing Instructions
6. CNM Open Education Resources – English 1210 – Ch 11
7. City University of New York Commons – Graduate Center – “How Do I Proofread and Copyedit Efficiently? Reading in Reverse

Links to Services Mentioned Throughout:

1. https://nextcloud.com/office/
2. https://workspace.google.com/
3. https://www.office.com/