Writing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

I’m currently in the middle of writing a number of staff facing Frequently Asked Quesstions (FAQs) to support some work integrating Moodle with Turnitin.

The process of developing clear and consise instructions for end users took me back to some thoughts I drafted some time ago related to good practice for writing FAQs. This advice follows below.

Background

An FAQ is essentially a Frequently Asked Question.”FAQs are organized “collections” of valuable information that usually comes from questions (and their corresponding answers) for the most common issues raised by users, on various topics.” [1]

Since mid-2008, the e-Learning team at the University of Bath has successfully utilised the open source application phpMyFAQ to power its Moodle FAQ database. With tens of thousands of FAQs views so far, it has proved to be a useful resource, not only for staff and students but for the wider Moodle community.

In light of this success, the e-Learning team are launching a new FAQ database focused on a range of complementing learning technologies during early 2010.

Tips for writing FAQs

• Write from the point of view of the person reading the FAQ. What do they need to know to complete a given task, and why?
• Less is more: don’t use twenty words, when five will do. Be concise in your explanations.
• If your text explanation is lengthy, break it up into paragraphs. Use section headings if they make the content easier to break down.
• Bulleted or numbered lists always make instructions easier to follow. If appropriate, divide these lists up into small lists as illustrated at: http://go.bath.ac.uk/hvx2. Within lists, you may wish to embolded key terms (e.g. the text of buttons or links)
• If possible, avoid using screenshots as these often have to be updated when the application software is upgraded. Instead, use directions instructions – for example, “click on the Turn Editing On button near to the top right hand corner of the page”.

More information

Further details on writing a good FAQ can be found at: http://www.avangate.com/articles/writing-faq_89.htm

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