Posts by Ugur Akinci
AuthorIt SaaS Cloud Enterprise-Level Technical Writing Platform – Selected Features
© Ugur Akinci Here are a few really cool AuthorIt features that caught my eye during a recent webinar demonstration by the company founder and CEO Paul Trotter. Searching for Content AuthorIt is a powerful structured-authoring editor that allows you to use the same chunk of content many times over. So searching for reusable content…
Read More"I’m a journalist. A reporter… Can I become a successful technical writer?"
Can a journalist become a successful technical writer? I don’t see why not. I was a journalist once upon a time too. After I made the switch to technical writing, I never looked back. Two Skills of Journalists Journalism teaches you mental concentration and time-discipline. When you’re working as a reporter for a daily newspaper…
Read MoreU.S. Federal Government as a Source of Employment for Technical Writers
The U.S. federal government is a major source of employment for technical writers, as the government employs more than 7,000 writers who produce manuals and instructions for federal agencies and departments. Technical writing is a field that requires an understanding of the subject matter being written about, as well as the ability to communicate clearly…
Read MoreSurvey: British Office Workers Hate Business Speak
If you’re miffed to hear hackneyed expressions like “think outside the box” you’re not alone: a lot of office workers in Britain reported they also can’t stand the expression, according to a British survey of 2,000 cubicle dwellers. Tweny five percent of those surveyed ranked “blue sky thinking” and “hit the ground running” as number…
Read More10 Principles for a Great Technical Tutorial
I’ve compiled these 10 Principles for a Great Technical Tutorial on the basis of my experience as a technical writer who worked for Fortune 100 companies for over 20 years. As a technical writer you may be asked to write and design on-line tutorials on topics ranging from how to set up a customer service…
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How to Insert a Placeholder to a MS Word Document for a Book or Article Citation
Introduction Insert a placeholder to an MS Word document when, while working on the document, you would not have the citations at your fingertips. Problem Yet if you stop to make a search for the citations you may lose your rhythm and momentum. Solution So it makes sense to keep going full-steam ahead and to…
Read MoreThe Difference a Comma Makes
© Ugur Akinci Technical writers must watch their punctuation like a hawk because of the dramatic difference a misplaced punctuation mark makes. Here is a great example from the Understanding Uncertainty web site: “how unlikely the result is due to chance” versus “how unlikely the result is, due to chance” Click here to read the…
Read MoreEbook Self-Publishing Alternatives: Amazon Kindle, Moodle, Tizra
Every week I hear about yet another self-publishing alternative platform. Today I had the chance to have a look at Tizra.com and wanted to compare it to Kindle and Moodle, two of my favorite publishing platforms. KINDLE (http://kdp.amazon.com/) The advantage of Kindle is obvious: where else can you expose your content to millions of daily…
Read MoreScoville Pepper Heat Chart – Information Graphics that Shape the Conversation
© Ugur Akinci Sometimes information graphics hit the bulls-eye. Here is one such graphic, throwing precious light on a recent news event: spraying the UC Davis students with “pepper gas.” When I first read this story, I couldn’t help but assume that “pepper gas” would hurt just like jalapeno pepper, but only a lot more…
Read MoreHow to Combine Individual MS Word Files into a Master Document with IncludeText Field
The question of how to combine individual MS Word Files into a Master Document is a question that most technical writers face frequently during their careers. Perhaps you work in a large company and you need to pull together separate Word files into an updated document; or perhaps the task is to combine files written…
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