Writer's Block

Eureka! The Relationship of Good Science Writing to Risk Communication

A look at the importance of science writing in helping the public to understand issues that affect our daily lives so that we can make informed decisions concerning risk.

Writing in the Presence of Disaster: A Case Study of an Aviation Investigation Report

The experience of a documentation company in working on a major aircraft accident investigation report.

Learn the Techniques of Writing Before You Write

Writing is an art form. You must understand this art form before you can begin to challenge yourself and grow. Not many people would pick up a cello and start playing right away, without any knowledge of the basics of music, but the same does not hold true with writing. In fact, many people perceive writing to be some sort of inherent talent, without the need for training and hard work. Of course, some writers have a natural gift for creating structured and meaningful works with only minimal revision, but these are the exception rather than the rule.

Deking for Dignity

Deke, an abbreviation of decoy, is Canadian hockey slang meaning to deceive (usually a defensive player) with a fake shot or movement. The term is frequently used outside of the hockey context.

Requests for Proposal: A Call for Standardization

Anyone who has written a proposal knows that it sometimes takes a lot of work to make work. Peter Zvalo makes some suggestions on how to improve the Canadian federal government’s unnecessarily confounding requests for proposals.

The Art of Selling: Your Sales Techniques Must Fit the Product and the Times

A successful marketing representative shares her secrets on proven ways to sell writing consulting services.

Becoming Your Own Corporation: Boon or Bust?

Writers today are being advised to stop thinking in terms of building a life-long career with one employer, and instead view themselves as a one-person corporation offering specialized services to whomever is willing to pay the highest price.

Breaking the News

How to tell your client the truth even when a project isn't working out as planned.

Calling for Backup

Writers, of course, seldom find themselves in life-and-death situations. However, the way in which a writing project is managed can often mean the difference between a project’s failure and success. For writers managing a project, obtaining backup consists of two issues: making sure someone can continue your work if something prevents you from doing so yourself; and knowing how to get help when you can’t keep your head above water.

Communicating the Impossible: Is Technology Creating Information Overload?

It is sometimes puzzling why so much of the information to which present-day people are being exposed is so weak. One possible explanation is that because technology makes it so easy to create and distribute large quantities of information in a very short period of time, the creators of the information become more concerned with quantity rather than quality. Is this simply an oversight, a result of too many technocrats who believe that because they created the tools, they are also the best qualified to use them? Or is this phenomenon a deliberate mechanism that has been devised to justify the need for continued technological progress (i.e., more sophisticated communication tools)? One fact is becoming clear: the people driving technology into the future often do not devote enough attention to the quality of information.

Creating the Right Image Doesn't End with the Signing of a Contract

Helpful hints on how writers can create a positive first impression with clients.

Do You Have the Brain to Be a Writer?

Are some people born to be great writers, or can they learn their way to greatness? An insightful survey of current thought on this age-old debate.

Editing Sure Has Changed. Or Has It?

It has always been part of the editor's traditional task to search for the mot juste. This was especially true in technical fields: words could not be expected to guide readers if they were not accurate, and the mechanics of production made it costly to change words once they were published. Today, however, particularly in fields where much of what is published can become obsolete within months or weeks, fewer and fewer research organizations employ a full-time copy editor to refine the wording of their texts. Instead, to keep pace with the need for current information, our offices are being equipped with the latest tools for electronic text production.

English: A Global Language?

English is one of the most powerful tools in the world today. Why English and not another language? Writer Jeff Leiper offers some answers.

Etiquette for Globetrotters

Ever wonder why your last business trip abroad was a bust? Maybe it was something you didn't say. Learn what not to do when travelling in a foreign country.

Fighting for the Ultimate Desktop

Lately, articles have been appearing in some computer magazines expressing disappointment at the failure of electronic technology to produce a paperless office. What is the problem? Why are offices using more paper than ever before?

Finding the Time: When Deadlines Are Looming, Prioritizing Your Work Gets the Job Done

Professional people today work longer and harder than ever before. Find out how to make the most of a scarce resource—time.

Franglais in Canada: Does It Facilitate or Impede Clear Expression?

Pits the Pragmatic Many against the Snobbish Few in an attempt to discover what, if anything, Franglais contributes to clear expression. Is lexical and grammatical cross-pollination a sign of the type of dynamic evolution that enhances communication or a sign of a form of bastardization that impedes clear expression?

Good Communication Is More than Just Good Writing

Writers can be good at writing, but lousy at communicating verbally. These tips will help you communicate better with your clients—and instill clients with confidence in your real strengths.

Good Communication: Seeing the Forest While Managing the Trees

Effective communication, which often appears effortless, is actually the result of a lengthy and surprisingly complex journey—a journey during which you can easily lose your way. Staying focussed is the key to retaining a clear picture of how to convey information to its intended audience.

Ho-Hum, Not Another Meeting: A Delightful Experiment Changes the Way One Company Conducts Internal Meetings

Company meetings are often regarded as conservative and uninspired by those who must attend. We all know that meetings are necessary, but we also know that they can be wearisome. Not all meetings need be that way. In fact, meetings can inject some lighthearted fun into the day and stimulate the creative juices. This is a story about how a series of humdrum meetings at one consulting firm evolved into a creative expression that is as varied as the participants themselves.

Information Models for Web Structure

All destinations on the World Wide Web are constructed from information. Yet, these destinations seem to be physical, and, as a result, must be structured to help users locate and navigate the information in an intuitive way. Imaginary maps called information models represent the varying ways in which information can be structured.

The Internet and the English Language

Explores how the use of e-mail and Internet chat rooms is contributing to the deterioration of the English language.

Interview with a Graphic Designer: Web-Document Design

Our in-house graphic designer shares her Web-document design experience.

Intranets: Brave New Worlds?

Intranets signal a significant evolution in the way organizations will be using, producing, and finding corporate information. Discover where this evolution will lead us.

It's a Matter of Policy

Policies set boundaries for what is acceptable and unacceptable. But what makes a policy effective? Discover the basic components of a good corporate policy.

The Juggling Act: A Manager's Artform

Handling multiple priorities, coordinating the efforts of various teams, and ensuring that different projects remain under control are essential to survival in a climate of resource limitation and fast-paced change. I could talk about tips on staying organized, how to deal with uncooperative or under-producing staff, fixing problem situations, handling irate clients, re-working schedules while maintaining key deliverables in the middle of a project, ensuring a team functions as it should—but these are really textbook concepts. There are a hundred courses that teach the latest techniques for handling these situations. Anyone can learn to be a good manager to some degree; the key is wanting to be one and putting yourself in the right frame of mind.

Making the Grade: Managers' Tips for Performing Staff Evaluations

Evaluations should be used to take a look at the overall picture, to review where an employee has been in terms of professional development, and to get an idea of where he or she is headed. By doing that, you can provide your staff with valuable advice and guidance. They will be able to grow, both professionally and personally, and you will have a much more effective member of your team. Carrying out an evaluation properly is not easy. Here are a few tips on how to get the most out of the experience.

Making the Rules: A Day in the Life of a Regulatory Drafter

David Spicer, Senior Regulatory Drafting Officer with the CFIA, discusses the regulatory drafting process, writing complex texts in the context of federal plain language principles, and what it’s like to write the words that define and protect Canadians.

My Computer Doesn't Understand Me: Automated Translation Tools

Can a machine that automatically renders true translations from one language to another become a reality?

Plain Language Writing: From a Good Idea Emerges Good Public Policy

Peter Zvalo looks at the plain language movement, its promoters and its critics.

The Podiatrists of the Writing World: In Defence of Non-Literary Writing

Lorie Boucher disputes the notion that creativity is the mysterious, unattainable claim of the writing world's gifted elite, and that its application in literary pursuits is worthy of higher praise than its expression in any other writing field.

Reviewing a Technical Writer's Performance

Helpful tips for managers on reviewing the work of a technical writer.

Schmoozing for Profit: Choose Your Event Carefully, then Start Working the Room

Two short years after the fortunes of many high-tech companies have all but dried up, Peter Zvalo discusses how schmoozing can ease the challenge of marketing technical documentation services.

Talent vs. Skill in the Modern Writer

Skill, not talent, is the distinguishing factor between the writer whose work others appreciate and the writer whose work only he enjoys. 'Ideas are a dime a dozen' is a helpful aphorism when separating writers into those who think of creating art and those who actually do.

Teamwork Creates a Positive Working Environment

In our present economic system, competition is viewed as a positive force. As children, our parents undoubtedly rewarded us for being the best, the fastest, the cleanest, or the smartest. As adults, we learn very quickly that only the best can be successful in a highly competitive world. While this competitive spirit can often help us to perform to our limits, when applied in its purest form within a work environment (i.e., when the competition is not of the friendly variety) it frequently results in hostilities that are counterproductive to producing good results.

Technology: A Blessing for Writers and Editors?

Computers have changed the way writers and editors work. But are we getting the most from the new tools?

Weaving an Untangled Web: Proper Planning of Your Web Site Will Pay Off

Many people rush eagerly to start playing with the World Wide Web as if it were a new toy. But, unlike a shiny new bicycle, the Web does not come with easy-to-follow assembly instructions: you can easily end up riding backwards down an extremely busy road. To make effective use of a Web site, you need to create your own assembly instructions—a well thought-out plan that positions your Web site as simply another tool in your overall communications or marketing strategy.

What Makes a Text Canadian: The Citizenship of Its Author or the Culture-Specific Insight of Its Prose?

Assigning nationality to a text is common practice — a method of categorizing a chaotic assembly of works into easily recognizable, and saleable, slots. The citizenship of an author is considered, by some, to be an adequate marker of the type of texts he or she creates. Yet the notion that Canadian authors produce 'Canadian' texts is problematic and restrictive. It presupposes a definitive Canadian culture on which the author may draw, an inability of the author to supersede his or her cultural inputs, and an acceptance that individual voices can speak for a diverse nation. So why do we gather unlike texts under the 'Canadian' umbrella? Unity is comforting, but diversity is reality in the realm of Canadian literature.

What They Want Is What They Need

Is the customer always right? My uncle Fred would argue that in the microcosm of neighbourhood corner store management the customer had better be always right, or you won't have your corner store for very long. He also knew, however, that regardless of his philosophical approach towards running his business, a lot of his customers who were supposedly right didn't have a clue as to what they were complaining about...but he'd never tell them that.

XML: Better Grist from a Better Mill?

In a world of documentation acronyms — ASCII, ANSI, SGML, HTML, DTD, FOSI — I have recently been exposed to the current newcomer on the scene: Extensible Markup Language (XML). For the first time, I'm seriously impressed with the possibility of a true breakthrough documentation solution. I'm particularly impressed that, at last, the industry is thinking of documentation in a way that promises to be practical and useful to us all.

A Matter of Style: On Writing and Technique

Many editors and writers will find A Matter of Style useful, but as readers, most will find it frustrating. Matthew Clark, a professor of classical literature and a musician, addresses the book to editors and writers, both creative and non-fiction, and especially to academic writers. The book is not an introduction and Clark assumes that his readers “already have a good grounding in the basics of grammar and style” (p. iv). He skips quickly through a chapter called “A Few Points of Grammar” to get to his real target, “questions of artistry” (p. 1). So far, so good, but problems soon develop around many of these nodes. The level of audience assumed by the book frequently varies. The book functions in many passages as an introduction to various classical arcana of questionable utility. Even more than questions of artistry, Clark deals with “questions about style” that are “questions of taste” and so “do not have definitive answers.” As many critics before him, he claims that “taste can still be discussed” (p. 14). The question is, “How?”

Eureka! The Importance of Good Science Writing

Today, society is large and scientific experiments across the world are carried out by people who are usually hidden from public view. So much of what scientists do affects our daily lives, yet most people remain largely unaware of how scientists use their (mostly public) funding, and how their work affects them. Good science writing helps us understand what scientists around the world are up to.

Understanding the Importance of Style Guides

Style guides describe conventions for virtually every aspect of writing, ranging from such things as spelling, punctuation, and word usage, to structural and formatting issues. With the myriad of style guides in use, the dilemma for many writers is deciding which one to learn and apply in the trade. The answer to this is easy: learn at least one style guide thoroughly and keep a selected few others for backup. In the course of recruiting technical and generalist writers and editors for nearly a decade, I am sometimes shocked at the low level of familiarity with long-established style guides by people who claim to be seasoned professionals in this business. The reality is that it is plainly obvious to spot writers who “claim” to know a style guide and those who have actually taken the time to study it. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. The quality and consistency of a writer’s or editor’s output is the litmus test to how proficient he or she is in applying a given style guide.

Character Assassination

The written language of China has the potential to create new international dialogue. But will the endangered script survive long enough to do it?

Corporatespeak: Deconstructing the New Language of Business

Business has a language all its own that changes almost daily. It is a language that is limiting, that denies possibility, and that excludes creative thinking. It is also the language with which industry players must grapple in their struggle to make money from new technology.

Deconstructing the Author Photo

Let's be honest. Writers used to be a homely lot and most of them still are. The general unattractiveness that spurs them to write in the first place (versus, say, leaving the house) is compounded by a characteristic, bloodshot squint earned through hours of deciphering Canada Council grant applications and the night before's Molson marinade, downed to obliterate the rejection-letter blues. Lighting and soft lenses can only hide so much. Yet publishers insist on including the author's photo on the book jacket, their unsightly portraits like roadside accidents from which you can't turn away. Trolls belong under the bridge, not on the bridge's architectural brochure.

Does Globalization Spell Trouble for Technical Writers?

The nature of work for traditionally white-collar professions such as technical writing, is also changing. While a growing number of professional writers is opting for the life of the freelancer, and enjoying the freedom and earning potential that this lifestyle can provide, many permanent full-time writing positions are being eliminated when work is delegated to temporary or contract workers.

Official Bilingualism Has Its Costs--and Opportunities

Since the inception of Canada's Official Languages Act in 1968, official bilingualism is estimated to have cost Canadians approximately $60 billion. Today, the cost of translating federal government documents and operating various programs, such as French language training for federal public servants, is estimated to be some $4 billion annually. And these figures do not take into account the cost of publishing bilingual documents and providing bilingual services at the provincial and municipal levels, or similar costs incurred by private enterprises. While these statistics periodically provoke intense debate in Canada on whether this is money well spent, the fact is that this country's bilingualism requirements have been a boon to at least one group of people employed in the communications field: French-language translators.

Technical Writer Wanted

The interviewee entered her prospective manager's office, eager to answer the questions that she knew would soon be fired at her. Shelley had been through this process a dozen times in the past few months as part of her quest for a technical writing position, and could anticipate the line of questioning. Far from being nervous, she was calm and confident. Phil, the manager, was also well versed in the interview process. Having hired many people during his career, he knew the type of person he was looking to hire. During an interview, his mind would usually be made up within the first few minutes about whether the candidate would get a second interview or would end up having to continue his or her search.

Online Vs. Hard-Copy Marketing Material: Both Have a Place

The World Wide Web, the panacea of the so-called information age, was supposed to transform the way we shop, are entertained, and get informed. If the web was supposed to be so great, why are we still reading so much information on paper?

Do You Have the Brain to be a Writer?

Parents, teachers, and guidance counsellors sometimes tell children who are anxious about what they're going to do with their life, that they can pursue virtually any career they put their mind to. With determination and lots of hard work, anyone can become a future Prime Minister or President. As reassuring as this sounds, recent findings in the field of brain research suggest that not all people (i.e., brains) are born equal.

Ivory Tower or Real World?

One man's career transition from academia to the technical writing. He dicusses foiled ambitions, crossing over, what is shared, Is it different, and Is it a matter of worth?

Ten Steps to Getting a Writing Job

A hiring manager in a documentation firm offers some advice and tips on getting a writing job.

I Punctuate; Therefore, I Am

It is punctuation that mirrors our personality, punctuation that exposes our true spirits, punctuation that reveals the soul. The punctuation that saturates our writing, that is, the punctuation marks we choose to overuse, is the real ink blot test of personality.

Writer's Block

Writer's Block is a Canadian magazine (and e-zine) dedicated to the writing trade. Offers online Articles and Writing tips.

Building a Technical Writing Portfolio

Technical writing is one of the few careers in which building a portfolio can be almost impossible. A technical writing portfolio is not limited by your experience, but by your imagination. And a good imagination is one of the things employers like to see in a technical writer.

Communications Is Everyone's Business

As we enter the new millennium, we have the benefit of a host of electronic tools that make the dissemination of information to an unlimited number of recipients virtually instantaneous. But these relatively new tools are only as effective as the quality of the content they carry, and are still dependent on a person's ability to organize and present information in a coherent manner.

Cover Letter Writing Blues

Cover letters can mean the difference between your work being read and being tossed callously into the nearest wastebasket. Writing cover letters makes me feel stupid and small, as though I were begging some faceless entity (read: editor) to acknowledge my pitiful existence.

Documentation Without Documents -- The COIL Model

A description of a Canadian content-management system from the early days of the emerging knowledge management industry. COIL is a document management system that manages the information held in documents, rather than the documents themselves. By integrating more than 1,500 hardcopy pages of legacy documentation into one on-line information resource, COIL provides chart producers with an effective way of consulting the standards and procedures for their GIS, and of managing revisions to those standards and procedures.

The Fourth 'R'

Teachers often emphasize the importance of the 'three Rs'--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. For people who earn a living through writing, as well as for those whose writing is a pastime, a solid grasp of the first two R's is indispensable. There is, however, a fourth 'R' critical for writers--research.

Interviewing Basics Help You Focus on Content

Interviewing is an excellent primary source of information for any research project. Interviews with subject-matter experts can expose the most up-to-date information and introduce new material that may shatter your originally held ideas about a subject.

Who Controls Electronic Rights -- the Publisher or the Writer?

The increased importance of electronic publishing requires publishers and writers to pay greater attention to electronic rights issues. Most contemporary publishing contracts, at least those in which the publisher or writer is represented by counsel, contain some reference to 'electronic rights.'

Why Every Creative Enterprise Needs Redundant Employees

The concept of redundancy is well known in the information technology industry. Redundancy, in this sense is not something to be eliminated, but rather a mechanism to be carefully controlled.

The Quest for Work

For consultants and independent technical communication contractors, keeping your eyes and ears open will go a long way toward keeping you busy.

Angels and Copy Editors Defend Us!

Tinkering with the author's words simply because 'I would not write them that way' is not discretion, but interference. Preserving the author's authentic voice is as important as enhancing its presentation so as to maintain the authority of the words. Of what, then, does the enhancing consist? And how does editorial discretion fit in?

Pricing a Documentation Project Is Part Science, Part Art

This article describes the ways in which determining a price to charge for documentation services is among the most important — and most challenging — tasks facing a contract writer or editor.

Résumés: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This article offers advice to technical writers about what to inlclude on their resumés, in order to get attention when applying for positions.

Writer and Subject-Matter Expert: Establishing a Positive Relationship

In a typical documentation project, the writer's role is not to express his or her own thoughts on paper, but rather the knowledge, plans, or ideas of someone else (usually a 'subject-matter expert' or SME). This article suggests ways to establish good working relationships with SMEs.