> [!NOTE] > **Estimated Time:** 10 minutes **Markdown** is a lightweight markup language that many technical professionals use to create and edit technical documents. With Markdown, you write text in a plain text editor (such as vi or Emacs), inserting special characters to create headers, boldface, bullets, and so on. For example, the following example shows a simple technical document formatted with Markdown: ## bash and ksh **bash** closely resembles an older shell named **ksh**. The key *practical* difference between the two shells is as follows: * More people know bash than ksh, so it is easier to get help for bash problems than ksh problems. The rendered version of the preceding technical document looks as follows: > > ## bash and ksh > > **bash** closely resembles an older shell named **ksh** . The key > *practical* difference between the two shells is as follows: > > - More people know bash than ksh, so it is easier to get help for bash problems than ksh problems. A Markdown parser converts Markdown files into HTML. Browsers can then display the resulting HTML to readers. We recommend becoming comfortable with Markdown by taking one of the following tutorials: - [www.markdowntutorial.com](https://www.markdowntutorial.com/) - [Mastering Markdown](https://guides.github.com/features/mastering-markdown/) ## What's next? Congratulations: you've completed the pre-class work for Technical Writing One. If the in-class portion of Technical Writing One is available in your organization, please take it. If you'd like to facilitate the in-class portion of Technical Writing One, see the [facilitator's guide](https://developers.google.com/tech-writing/for-instructors/one/instructors-guide). A quick compilation of the topics covered in Technical Writing One is available on the [Summary](https://developers.google.com/tech-writing/one/summary) page.