Guide to Writing Good Tutorials
By: Sazzad Hossain & Shrud Studios

What is a tutorial?
We all know that the computer presents new concepts and skills through interactive text, illustrations, descriptions, questions and problems. Information is sequenced to build on previously learned concepts, and often provides feedback and guidance. So to keep others upto par and help them understand “how to do” something is what a tutorial is. In short terms, tutorial is a set of ordered instruction that teaches someone something new. Tutorials can be on almost any subject. It can be on how to create a new solar powered motor, write a research paper, to build a robot, or how to survive your wife. But for the sake of “keeping the flow,” on this forum we will keep it relating to the WEB and PROGRAMMING in general.

Know Your Information
I know you have heard this before but this is very important. In order to write a good tutorial, you must know your material. Do you not hate it when you go to class and have to listen to a professor who knows nothing at all about the subject. Why would you want those dedicated members to feel the same way about your writing? Even if you have a bad grammar, no image, or sense of making it appealing, it still makes sense is considered a decent tutorial.

Organization and Steps
A tutorial is used to teach people how to do things “step-by-step.” So if you do not organize your content in a nice manner, how will they learn? Will they not make mistakes? A tutorial needs all the information on the subject in the correct order to help the reader recreate the experience and the item talked about. Include steps to make the life of the reader easier to keep track of things. One good method of writing a tutorial is to include details and images so that the users can compare what they have with what they should have. Please do note that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words and people just love pictures.

Protect Your Work
Although tutorials are generally created to teach the public for free, many sites offer premium service where you are required to pay. I am a man of OpenSource and love to release things for free of charge. But that becomes a problem as others can easily steal my work. To prevent such a thing, I like to include a nice header. In addition to it protecting my work, it will also give the reader a brief information on what I will be writing about. In general, the following items are what I would include in any tutorial:

• - Name of the tutorial
• - Name of the author
• - Tutorial Type (language, subject)
• - Skill Level Required
• - Authors URL
• - Demo URL
• - Brief Description

Make It Fun!!!
Make the tutorial fun and not something people would fall a sleep over. Tutorial is meant to teach something not to put someone to sleep.

Same of a “Good” Tutorial
Click here to view the tutorial.

Credits
**How To Write A Good Tutorial. King Tuts. King Tuts: How To Write A Good Tutorial