“What’s the Difference Between an Index and a TOC (Table of Contents)?”
Question – What is the most important part of any technical manual? Answer – The INDEX, believe it or not. Why? Because I do not know of a single user who would not immediately flip over to the Index and start searching for the words and terms that interest her the most. And the sense of…
Read More5 Top Rules of Index Construction
Here are the 5 top rules when you’re compiling a great index: 1) Always use lower case for your Index entries Use “password” instead of “Password”, or “boat” instead of “Boat”. EXCEPTION to the rule: all Proper Nouns should start with a capital letter. “Africa” instead of “africa”, or “Toyota” instead of “toyota”. 2) Always…
Read MoreA Blooming Writing Niche for “Green Technical Writers”
A Subniche There are so many new writing niches sprouting every day. As a technical writer you may want to keep an eye on these developments. If you don’t, you might very well be leaving money on the table. “Green Jobs” is one such blooming niche. GHG (Green House Gases) is a green sub-niche that…
Read More4 Solutions to Procrastination
Why do we procrastinate? Let’s first look at the word itself. PRO in Latin means FORWARD. CRAS, again in Latin, means TOMORROW. CRASTINUS, derived from “Cras,” means BELONGING TO TOMORROW. That’s why to procrastinate means putting off something that you should do today to tomorrow. People procrastinate for a lot of different reasons. There is no single reason…
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