Posts Tagged ‘technical communication’
The Value of Judging Technical Documents as a Juror at STC Competition
© 2010 Ugur Akinci I love to be a judge at STC’s annual technical documentation competitions. This year is the fourth time I’m serving as a judge in my local chapter’s (Wash DC) annual technical document competition. Twice I had the honor to serve my local chapter as a Lead Judge. In other two times…
Read More7 Great Tips to Edit Your Own Document
It’s best to have a colleague or an outside reviewer to read and edit your technical or business documents. But sometimes you might now have that luxury and you may be all alone. So how should you edit your own stuff? I can only give you a few tips that worked for me in the…
Read MoreSecrets of Good Communication – 5 Tips of Explaining Things More Effectively
Good communication is all about explain things well to others, isn’t it? Here is a wonderful little paper, available as a PDF download from TechRepublic, about 10 ways in which we can all improve the way we explains things to others. I really liked this list. My experience in life tells me that every item…
Read More4 Reasons Why All Companies Should Have Terminology Management
What is Terminology Management? Terminology Management is a vital technical communication function for all corporations. Larger the corporation, more urgent is the need to have a standard catalog of terms and concepts used consistently across all levels of the organization. The goal of a terminology is to provide a set of terms that are well-defined,…
Read MoreHow to Write a Corporate Form 10-K Annual Report
Annual Report All U.S. companies that issue publicly traded stock shares must file an Annual Report with the U.S. SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) by law. They have to disclose their financial dealings, strengths and vulnerabilities, by filing Form 10-K every year. Another name for this form is the “Annual Report.” If a company has…
Read MoreHow to Punctuate Items Listed in a Table Cell or Unordered List
Punctuation of table cell or unordered list items presents a special problem in technical writing since more often than not such lines include technical specs. Punctuation questions, like whether to end each line with a period or not, acquires a special significance since Parallelism “Parallelism” is one of those cardinal rules in technical writing. In…
Read MoreShould You Use Text or Video in Your Posts & Publications?
We need to make a lot of choices every day. The familiar refrain of “paper or plastic?” represents one such mundane choice that we are faced with when we stop by at a supermarket for shopping. Another choice I’m faced with on a regular basis is “text or video” in sharing useful technical writing tips…
Read More4 Variables to Determine Your Success at a Technical Writing Job Interview
When a reader asked the “best way” to get ready for a technical writing assessment test and job interview I realized how hard it is to give a satisfactory answer. The reason is, the appropriate and really truthful answer depends not on a single but the following four variables: (1) Historically Specific Job Market When…
Read MoreHow to Create PDF with Acrobat-Alternative: "Smart PDF Creator"
© 2010 Ugur Akinci Adobe Acrobat is a marvel of a tool. The things that you can do with it is too long a list to print here. But what if all you need to do is covert a MS Word or FrameMaker file to PDF? Would you still need Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro (which…
Read MoreHow to Develop Your Technical Illustration Skills
© Ugur Akinci As I mentioned several times in the past, if you are a technical communicator who enjoys graphic arts, you are missing something in your career if you have not developed your technical illustration skills. Our industry is very ripe for those writers who can also draw and create all kinds of technical…
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