How 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…

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How to Write Creative Transition Sentences

Creative writers and journalists sometimes have a problem with transitioning smoothly from one paragraph to the other, especially when they are changing the subject. Learning transition sentences is not really that hard. When we hop from topic to topic w/o a transition sentence, we “jar” the reader. While sentence transitions may be the last line…

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Poker

Poker Writing: A New Writing Niche

Introduction Poker writing is one of those writing niches that do not fit anywhere but they are fascinating. It is a genre that did not exist as a viable alternative just a decade ago. But now there are writers out there earning a living as a “poker writer.” So what’s “poker writing”? Is it technical…

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A Simple Way to Maximise the Impact of any Article

Calling all publishers, editors, journalists and freelance writers. It’s time to breathe more life into your copy. Turn your articles into living pieces that spark measurable debate, get closer to your readers and engage their mind and soul – we’re talking revolution. As it was in the beginning Publishers have for many years relied on…

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How to End a Sentence to Communicate the Right Subtext

How you end a sentence makes all the difference in the world in your commercial and technical copy. Or rather, it makes all the difference in the world the way you end a sentence. (See the difference already? In the first sentence the emphasis is on “copy”; in the second it’s on the “end of…

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Facts about Abbreviations & Acronyms

I just came across a great article on how to abbreviate titles and other things and what NOT to abbreviate. I think we all need a refresher like this from time to time, especially if English is your second language. Here is an excerpt from this useful article by M. J. Mardan: Titles before names: Mrs.,…

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