Technical Writing Archives - Page 6 of 7

Write for Your Users

Before you begin any documentation project, you need to answer the following questions: Who are your users? What are they trying to do? Formally, this is called a User/Task Analysis; informally, it’s called putting yourself in the user’s shoes. Rarely, will all of your users fit under one umbrella. Your…

A Week in My Life as a Technical Writer

On Friday, as I was leaving office, I received a mail from my Documentation Manager (Doc Manager) that there was a major change to the module I was documenting. The release date for the software and the documentation remained unchanged which was the following Friday. The Doc Manager had also…

Price of a Comma

The correct use of punctuation is a topic that is often debated hotly in technical writing circles. Here are two incidents that illustrate the effect of a misplaced comma: Comma goof costs Lockheed $70 million Comma quirk irks Rogers

Understanding Rule-Based Writing

How and why are rules important to a documentation team? How can technology be used to enforce rules? These and similar questions are discussed in an article by Aruna Panangipally, MD, ibruk Consulting Pvt Ltd. The article Understanding rule-based writing published in the tcworld magazine in May 2011.

Price of an Unread Manual

A brand new Airbus 40-600 sits outside its hangar in Toulouse, France. Not a single hour of flying time yet. The flight crew from Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) enter to conduct pre-deliver tests such as engine run-ups before taking delivery for Etihad Airways, Abu Dhabi. The ADAT crew taxi to…

Great Rules of Writing by William Saffire

Do not put statements in the negative form. And don’t start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified…

Importance of Standards in Documentation

Standards play an important role is making documents usable and effective. This article explains the importance of standards in documentation.

Creating a Numbered List in Adobe FrameMaker

Creating a numbered list in Adobe FrameMaker requires you to create two Paragraph formats: The first paragraph format will be applied only to the first item in the list and will ensure that the numbering starts at 1. The second paragraph format will be applied to all other list items…