Eliminate "I" and "You" from Peer Reviews

© 2010 Ugur Akinci I have previously mentioned in another blog post that one of the best techniques to use in a peer review is to eliminate the second-person singular pronoun, “You.” I recommended talking in terms of “me” and “I” in order not to offend the other party. For example, instead of saying “You…

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What Should Today's Ideal Help (User Assistance) Format Look Like?

© 2010 Ugur Akinci Alan Porter of WebWorks help authoring software has released a new white paper titled “Delivering Help for Today’s Web” which can be ordered from aporter@webworks.com Porter raises a number of important issues that I’ve also been thinking about for some time. It’s true that yesterday’s static help file system is losing…

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President Obama Signed Plain Writing Act of 2010

  © Ugur Akinci A new era has begun in the United States when President Obama signed the Plain Writing Act of 2010 on October 13, 2010. According to this, all U.S. government agencies and offices are now mandated to create all their documents and communications in clear, uncomplicated English. Here is the text of…

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How to Avoid Dangling Participles in Your Technical Writing

© Ugur Akinci “Dangling Participles” is the kind of writing error you should avoid in your technical documents because it changes the meaning of a sentence and often leads to unintended humor. But first — what is a “participle”? PARTICIPLE is the present- or past-participle form of a verb which is used as an ADJECTIVE.…

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How to Create a Pie Chart with Adobe Illustrator

© 2010 Ugur Akinci Did you know that you can create 3-D pie (and other types of) charts with Adobe Illustrator? Here is how: (1) Select the pie chart tool from the tool bar and double-click it to display the Graph dialog box: (2) Enter 200 px for both Width and Height of the chart…

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How to Write a Terrible Technical Document

© 2010 Ugur Akinci There are many ways to write a really bad technical document. Let’s look at some of the foolproof ways to accomplish that. (1) Obtuse or indecipherable document title Instead of calling your document “Mark-24 User Manual”, use one of the following titles: “M24/X-768 Set-5.3 Rev. 4.4.6.8 OPS-VII H4G5” Or “The All-Comprehensive…

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Technical Book Review: "How to Write Usable User Documentation"

How To Write Usable User Documentation (Second Edition) by Edmond H. Weiss is a thoughtful book on technical documentation written by a professional who obviously knows his material very well. Yet, overall, from its content to its format, this is also a book that shows its age. Published back in 1991, many of the topics…

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The Hidden High Cost of Cutting Down on Documentation

© 2010 Ugur Akinci When times are rough, one of the first things companies try to cut back on is documentation. Some managers believe that if they fire a few technical writers and skip on user and installation manuals the company would make more profit. The reality could be just the opposite. The company may…

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