Archive for July 2009
Sharing Content – Can It Hurt Your Web Site Traffic?
© 2010 Ugur Akinci Can sharing content “too much” be a problem for your web site traffic? I admit, I had this paranoia about sharing “too much” information with my visitors years ago but not any more. Because the more you share, the more your readers will accept you as an authority in your field,…
Read MoreLearning How to Write Well with John Steinbeck
One of the best ways to learn how to write well is to read a master and pay attention to the way he or she is doing it. I still read a lot of books with that kind of awareness since even after 20 years of writing for a living I’m still learning how to…
Read MoreHow much should you charge as a writer?
The question of “how much to charge” is always up in the air. I personally try not to quote an hourly rate and much rather work for a set fee. That avoids any second guessing on the part of the client as to how many hours any job “should take.” Having said that, here is…
Read MoreHow to estimate a copy writing job
© 2009-2010 Ugur Akinci It’s not easy to estimate how long a copy writing job will take due to the many factors involved in the estimation. Writing commercial copy does not only involve sitting in front of your keyboard and starting to pound away. You need to make research, read all the relevant materials on…
Read MoreWhich Way Your Sentences Branch – Right or Left?
Ugur Akinci Try right-branching sentences in your technical documents for higher comprehension. Right-branching sentences start with the SUBJECT, follow it with PRIMARY VERB (or sometimes the other way around if the verb is in imperative/order mode), and then end with modifiers and other relevant information. What branches off to the right of the subject and…
Read MoreWhat a Technical Writer Should Know About DocBook?
© 2009 Ugur Akinci DocBook is a set of tools for implementing XML (Extended Markup Language)-based structured documentation. It is developed back in 1991 and is widely used today by those technical writers who generate single-sourced documentation. It is especially well suited for software, hardware and networking documentation. A DocBook set includes the DocBook DTD…
Read MoreHow to Use Wikis for Your Technical Writing Projects
Today I’d like to talk about how you can use a Wiki for your technical document project. A wiki (which means “quick” in Hawaiian) is a collaborative writing software with which you can set up a “wiki site” as well. With wiki’s powerful database, editing and messaging functionalities you can accomplish much for your technical…
Read MoreGive Speeches to Supplement Your Income as a Writer
by Gary Karbon Guest Writer Have you considered giving talks as a natural way to supplement your income as a writer? If you haven’t, you should. It’s a powerful shortcut to become known as an “instant guru” in your field without receiving a Ph.D. degree. Writers are natural speakers since they know how to organize…
Read More"Online Job Bidding" Sites for Writers…
By Gary Karbon Guest Writer Recently I had the opportunity to study some of the Online Job-Bidding Sites out there catering to copy and technical writers. Some of these sites are very well known. And some others are not. But there are a bunch of them out there and they are all similar in the…
Read MoreHow to Avoid "Gender Ambivalence" in Technical Writing
© 2009-2011 Ugur Akinci One of the hardest things in writing English is to avoid using the third person singular pronouns, unless you are writing for an exclusively male or female group. Every time I see a document with a sentence like “the operator must configure his or her machine according to…” I cringe. Some…
Read More