Many Heads Make Work Right

Writing is popularly considered a spontaneous exercise, and often is. Spontaneous writing, however, does not always result in high quality results.

Aiyyangar, Ramesh. Indus (2002). Articles>Writing>Collaboration>Technical Writing

Marketing Writing for Technical Products  

This workshop will examine the types of marketing materials that can give you creative experience. You'll learn how to adapt your skills and subject matter knowledge to these projects, how to plan and develop different types of materials, and how to identify opportunities for new types of communication.

King, Janice M. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Technical Writing

Meaningful Microcontent

Microcontent refers to small, granular, and possibly representative (that can provide a summary of or a navigation to a larger set of information) bits of information, typically available on the Web. An example in the domain of journalism might be headlines and news summaries, small bits of content that can be used on a front page of the news with links to more in-depth articles. The definition has grown in scope as much as in its application.

Albing, Bill. KeyContent.org (2006). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Technical Writing

Medical Technical Writing  

In a multibillion-dollar-per-yearcindustry, medical technical writers are well situated between companies that manufacture drugs and medical equipment and the federal government, which regulates the manufacture of drugs and medical equipment. The government requires that these companies produce specific types of documents, which must be of a very high standard. This situation creates lucrative opportunities for technical writers.

English, Wayne A. Intercom (2003). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Technical Writing

Memos

A memo is a concise document that conveys essential information about your accomplishment(s). All memos at Ohio University should be written in third person.

Young, V.L. and K.J. Sampson. Ohio University (2004). Articles>Writing>Business Communication>Technical Writing

Mental Models: Laying Foundations to Support Readers  

Technical communication is often no more complicated than clearly describing the steps in a procedure, but sometimes we must create new models for each key part of a complex procedure.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2007). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing

The Merging Work of Technical and Marketing Communications  

Increasingly, technical communicators are being asked by their companies to participate in marketing efforts. While most of us have long considered user's manuals and other documentation an important ingredient in maintaining customer loyalty, we have accepted that generally our primary function is to instruct people on the use or repair of products. Our job is to make complex information understandable; if in doing so we also make friends of customers and prospective customers, then we are pleasantly surprised.

Palokoff, Kathy. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Marketing

Method of Text Presentation

A problem that sometimes occurs, when authors ask my advice about the method of presenting an instruction, is that they use words that I think will not necessarily be understood by people whose mother-tongue is not English.

Farrington, Gordon. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing

Review: Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications

Microsoft is one of the largest software companies in the world. Thus, with their rich experience in documentation it is only natural that they share it with the rest of the IT industry. The Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, Third Edition (MSTP) is the latest step in this direction and takes care of latest technologies and technical terms.

Sharma, Sangeet. Indus (2005). Articles>Reviews>Style Guides>Technical Writing

Microwriting: Small Choices with Large Implications  

The little elements of writing can make a big difference. If you're looking for a way to refresh your writing, consider paying close attention to the aspects involved in microwriting.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2006). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing

Mistakes Technical Writers Make  

Inexperienced technical writers typically make a number of avoidable mistakes, including parroting the SME and hard-coding xrefs. Here is a description of some mistakes to avoid.

Docsymmetry (2003). Articles>Documentation>Technical Writing

More on Education for Technical Communicators

For most readers of TC-Forum, technical communication is an activity undertaken by dedicated technical communicators, for whom writing, editing, illustrating, or page-making is their chosen vocation. Yet there is also a much larger community for whom technical communication is only a secondary activity, although it remains an essential part of their work.

Blicq, Ronald S. TC-FORUM (1998). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

More than "Correct"

I think it can be dangerous for a technical writer to be a grammar expert.

DeGraw, Yvonne. Boston Broadside (1993). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Grammar

Motivating and Preparing Students to Submit Articles on Technical Writing  

Technical writing students must learn that technical writing is objective, unemotional, unequivocal, and factual.

Estrin, Herman A. CCC (1974). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing

Musings on User-Generated Documentation

User-generated documentation is a big issue in technical communication circles. If properly done, tapping into the knowledge of users can improve the quality and breadth of your documentation.

DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Documentation>Technical Writing>Wikis

Myths About Technical Writing

When you start working with DITA, there are some things that you may feel you need for traditional reasons that you won't find in DITA. Before you try to modify or specialize DITA, it may be worthwhile to rethink some technical writing practices that are outdated and not recommended today.

Doyle, Bob. XML.org (2008). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>DITA

A Natural Conversation about Technical Writing

An introduction to the new co-host, competition entries, an interesting entry from Microsoft, audio in instructions, screen demos, the STC annual conference, other technical communication tools, wikis, blogs, NetVibes, Get me the Geeks video, David Pogue, Walt Mossberg, and more.

Johnson, Tom H. and Heidi Hansen. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Podcasts

The Nature of the Narrator in Technical Writing  

Writers of technical information need to be aware of their rhetorical stance and think of themselves as narrators, as people telling other people about something or how to do something or what they propose to do. Too often writers of technical information write in passive voice and third-person narrative perspective, disguising or blurring their involvement in the activities they describe and often blurring and dulling the information as well. Writing in active voice and, when appropriate, the first person, enlivens information, removing it from the realm of the stuffy and stale.

Deming, Lynn H. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Rhetoric

Needless to Say

The needless repetition of words and the repeating of ideas is everywhere - in newspapers, books, magazines, e-mails, television, and even in conversation. They’re called redundancies and the English language is full of them. In fact, research shows that about 50 percent of English is redundant.

Dowling, Dave. Indus (2003). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Minimalism

A New Look at Infinitives in Business and Technical Writing    

This article begins by arguing that the infinitive phrase has not been taken seriously in writing because writers have been too concerned with Bishop Robert Lowth's proscription against the split infinitive. However, careful examination of three types of technical prose (instructions, annual reports, and 'junk mail') reveals that more than one sentence in four contains an infinitive phrase. The article then argues that two linguistic theories do not adequately explain the overwhelming presence of infinitives in the three types of prose. The reason for the presence of infinitives seems to be that they fulfill several rhetorical purposes, including vigor, symmetry, emphasis, variety, economy, and depersonalization. Implications for writing and teaching are also discussed.

Myers, Marshall. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Articles>Writing>Grammar>Technical Writing

Not a Bad Life: Notes from Under the Desert

What's it like being a technical writer on a kibbutz? One obvious difference is the money. I do manage the business, but I don't own it - The Text Store is part of the kibbutz and, as such, is owned jointly by the kibbutz's 125 members. As a member of the kibbutz, I get a monthly allowance instead of a salary, so the money I earn from technical writing goes straight into the kibbutz's bank account. My only reward for landing a big contract is my co-workers' congratulations (we usually celebrate with ice cream).

Goldstein, Dan. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Israel

Notes from the Other Side: The Strange Profession of Technical Writing

With writing as my 'marketable skill,' I crossed over the Rubicon from literature to technology. I became a technical writer for a data communications company. My job entailed creating software documentation—a category of discourse that I had not known existed.

Merrill, Lynn L. ADE Bulletin (1989). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing

Now That You've Got a Double Agent, What Do You Do With 'Em?  

Having demonstrated the importance of acquiring a double agent for writing projects, we now want to explain the best ways to successfully indoctrinate a double agent. This paper will help you prepare for, orient, train, and become a mentor for a double agent to help make him or her an effective member of your writing team.

Fisher, Judith R., Karen L. Mobley and Michelle M. Wright. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Writing>Technical Editing>Collaboration

Nuclear Information: One Rhetorical Moment in the Construction of the Information Age  

Since the late 1970's we have been said to be living in the information age, and that name has stuck, with the phrase increasingly appearing throughout the closing decades of the millennium. The slogan, like all slogans, attempts to assert unity in the face of complexity; nonetheless, it captures, better than most such slogans, a dominant theme of almost all aspects of our everyday life. The slogan has its visual icons in advertising and journalism: binary bits flashing down wires and across the sky, tied to no location and independent of the humans who may need or use that information. Information has become an abstract universal, like atoms and electrons, to create or serve any entity, in no particular configuration, serving no particular purpose, gathered and used by no particular people (but of course provided or facilitated by specific companies who make this information their business). Information, however, is a human creation for human purposes, even if our devices now produce terrabytes of signals that travel only to other devices, never to be seen or touched by humans. This essay recovers a small piece of the history by which we constructed our understandings and uses of information, so that information has become pervasive in everyday life, needs, and action. It considers how information came to have major governmental and military meanings to the U.S. public during World War Two and after, and how an anti-nuclear test activist group asserted an alternative understanding of information to foster public opposition to government policy. This rhetorical reconstruction of information advanced a culture of citizen information, validated by citizen scientists to serve the needs and concerns of citizens, which pervaded the anti-war, environmental, and consumer movements that became our everyday reality in the second half of the century. Such citizen information embodies multiple assumptions about threats to everyday life, the necessity of reliable and up-to-date information for action to oppose the threats, large institutions whose interests are served by the threatening situation and which limit access to relevant information, science as an independent and objective source of information, and the responsibilities of a citizen to be informed.

Bazerman, Charles. UCSB. Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Writing>Rhetoric