Technical Writing
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…
Read MoreTechnical Communication – A Pandemic Influenza Scale that Does Not Work
Meaningful classification of information is one of the prime tasks in technical communication. By that standard, the WHO (World Health Organization) classification of the Swine Flu into “phases” fails the test since it does not give us an indication of the severity of the “pandemic” or suggest what should we do about it. But first…
Read MoreHow to Balance Facts and Emotions in Technical Communication
Technical documentation readers are usually a “voluntarily captive audience.” They choose to read a user manual by their own free choice. When we get to a piece of technical documentation we are usually ready and willing to believe in the author and follow his or her procedural steps. All we are looking for are the…
Read MoreEnglish – Eliminate SIMPLY from your Technical Documents and Copy
Eliminate SIMPLY from your sentences for more impact and greater clarity in your technical documents and commercial copy. ORIGINAL: Simply enter your User ID into this field. BETTER: Enter your User ID into this field. – – – – – ORIGINAL: I have to remind you that this simply is not going to work. BETTER:…
Read MoreTechnical Writing – What is a SCOPE Document?
© Ugur Akinci A SCOPE document is one of those fundamental documents that define and guide any major project. As a technical writer you may be asked to write one, in close coordination with the project management (or your private client). In terms of its strategic abstraction, the SCOPE comes right after the VISION document.…
Read MoreHow to Write About Swine Flu
At this writing, the Swine Flu is spreading out fast all across the world. This is again one of those times when accurate and detailed information is absolutely necessary. Technical writers are uniquely qualified to provide such a service to the information-hungry public. So how would you write a Swine Flu information article, brochure, or…
Read MoreLogic and Reasoning in Technical Communications
We writers sometimes forget that “communication” must be logical in order to be effective. Otherwise we might as well be writing poetry (which I love and dabble with in my spare time as a hobby but never mistake it for “technical communication”). One of the most important logical fallacies committed in technical communication is the…
Read MoreFrameMaker – How to Insert Text Inside an Anchored Frame
© Ugur Akinci PROBLEM: You would like to insert a text inside a frame (box) in FrameMaker (FM) with one condition: you’d like to have both the text and the frame move appropriately with the rest of the body text when anything is deleted or added to your document. SOLUTION: 1] Let’s assume that this…
Read MoreWhy Does Persistence Pay? The Mathematical Proof
We’ve all heard it a million times that “persistence pays.” We’ve seen countless examples of people succeeding in something just because they’ve kept trying at it until… SHAZAM! Something gives away, an invisible lever in the sky flips over, and the obstacles disappear like magic. We use the phrase “lucky break” to describe the mysterious…
Read MoreFacts 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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