Caught in the Web: An Intranet Adventure  

As the World Wide Web rapidly evolves, as philosophies for designing online documents change, and as technologies grow ever more sophisticated the technical communicator is presented with many challenges. What are the most eflective methods for structuring, authoring and maintaining online documents? What are the best tools and formats to use for the construction of a documentation Web site? What kinds of technical decisions must the designer or writer make? HTML or PDF? GIF or JPEG? Can several text and graphics formats be combined into one seamless site? What about hypertext links - how many is too many? What is the best approach to building a prototype? Presenting it to users? Selling it to management? Many lessons can be learned before embarking on the journey. , .

Cluff, Susan C. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

The Art Of Editing: User's Guides Versus Technical Documents  

While contemplating topic areas for a presentation at this year's conference, our biggest challenge was the fact that not all technical editors edit the same type of documents. Presentations at STC conferences are heavily concentrated toward user documentation and software instructional manuals. With that as our prime focus, we identified six common elements that we both consider as we edit a document. We then compared our methods of approaching these elements. One of us edits primarily user's guides and procedural manuals; the other edits scientific and technical documents.

Cluff, Susan C. and Sandra R. Marks. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Editing>Technical Editing

Who Am I?  

I'm a firefighter. A user representative. A lobbyist for the little guys. A sort of expert on a fistful of word processing packages, desktop publishers, and graphics software. I can fix printers when they jam. Or hang for no apparent reason. I can change toner cartridges. I can spell words that people can't seem to find in the dictionary. I can rewrite sentences that don't make any sense so that they make more sense. When it comes right down to it, I'm the person people call to solve all sorts of problems. And I do Windows. Who am I? I'm a technical communicator.

Cluff, Susan C. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>TC