What is technical writing?

What is technical writing?

by

Tim North, http://www.scribe.com.au

Before setting up shop as a proofreader, I worked as a technical writer. When I told people what I did, I was often met with blank stares bordering on total incomprehension.

These days, I'm often asked how to get into the field of proofreading, and I usually suggest a stint doing technical writing first. Again, I'm often met by the same response.

Thus I thought I'd set the record straight and finally answer that question that has (I'm quite sure) been keeping you awake at nights:

Just what is a "technical writer" anyway?

Technical writing is the profession that involves translating scientific and technical information into more easily understandable language.

Technical writers may prepare scientific and technical reports, operating and maintenance manuals, catalogues, assembly instructions, sales materials and project proposals. They may also plan and edit technical reports and oversee the preparation of illustrations, photographs, diagrams and charts.

Some technical writers work full time for a single company for many years; others choose to do short-term contracts (usually of three to twelve months duration) for a variety of companies. Some hold a managerial (or other) job in which technical writing is just one of many tasks that they perform.

Some technical writers may specialize in a particular field such as medicine or computing. Others may write about a wide range of areas. Some start as general writers and then acquire specialized technical knowledge. Others start as technical professionals and then learn technical writing "on the job".

To be a successful technical writer (whether full time or just occasionally) you need many skills:

* You need a degree -- or at least a great deal of experience -- in the field (or fields) about which you're writing.

* Obviously, you need to be able to write well. At a minimum, this involves having a good vocabulary and a strong command of grammar, spelling and punctuation. If you don't know a conjunction from an adverb this may not be the field for you.

* You also need to be able to organise information well. When writing a technical report, you need to be able to arrange the information into a suitable order, delete (or de-emphasize) less important information, cross-reference the information and more.

* You need good people skills. Sometimes the only people who will be able to answer your questions about the material you're writing about will be scientists, programmers and engineers. These folk are not always the best communicators! Regardless, you'll have to be able to organize time to talk with them, tease out the answers to your questions, and have them check your work for technical correctness. This requires good interpersonal skills.

* You will need good Internet and library skills as these can be vital sources of information. You need to know how to use them efficiently.

* It helps to be a fast and accurate typist. Often you'll be working on a deadline, and two-finger typing will be a disadvantage.

It's a challenging career, and not an easy one to get into. If you work at it, though, it can be both financially rewarding and professionally satisfying.

Ten tips for writing good sales copy

Ten tips for writing good sales copy

by

Tim North, http://www.scribe.com.au

Do you ever write ads for online or offline media? If so, the tips below will help you to get the very best response.

1. Start by choosing the single benefit of your product or service that you most wish to highlight. This is your "principal selling position". To choose this, ask yourself what specific benefit makes your product or service different, better, or special. Is it the price?, the convenience?, the reliability? How are you different from your competitors?

2. Write attention-grabbing headlines. This is very important. People are overloaded with information, so they skim read -- particularly on the web. If your headline doesn't get their attention, everything else may go unread. Your headline will often highlight your principal selling position.

3. Write a list of all the features of your product or service then translate each of these into a benefit for the customer. One way to do this is to look at each feature in turn then ask yourself "So what?" Imagine you're a customer; why should you care about this feature? Ask yourself, "What will it do for me?"

For example, don't just say that you product is fast (a feature) tell the customer that it will give them more free time (a benefit). Better still, paint a picture of them using their free time to go to the beach, read a book, or relax.

4. Write copy that emphasizes the benefits in a way that makes an emotional connection. For example, let's say you're selling toothpaste. A feature might be that it contains fluoride. Sure, but that's boring. Rather, say it "Lessens tooth decay!" or even better: "Brush with Boffo and avoid the dentist's drill!" See? You've turned a dull feature into a strong emotional benefit. Isn't that more effective than "Contains fluoride"?

5. Start with your strongest selling points. The first few paragraphs are particularly important. Use them to create a desire for your product or service by briefly touching on the major benefits it will bring the customer. You don't have to go into too much detail up front as you can expand on these benefits later. Do try to get your big guns in early, though.

6. Testimonials sell. Good, believable testimonials from real people will help sales, particularly on the web where establishing credibility is a tough job. For even better credibility, ask your testimonial writers if you can include their contact details along with their testimonial.

7. Write with a natural style. Don't try to be pretentious or over friendly. Just write it the way you'd say it.

8. Decide who you're writing for and why. What tone are you trying to convey: light hearted or serious? What level of jargon are you going to employ? Suit your language to your intended audience.

9. The final sales pitch can be strengthened with some or all of the following techniques:

    * Provide a good deal; for example, "20% off".

    * Employ urgency; for example, "This week only".

    * Make your offer risk free; for example, "Comes with a money-back guarantee".

10. End by telling the reader how to get your offer; for example, "Ring now" or "Click here to order now for immediate delivery". Needless to say, ordering details must be clearly visible and simple to follow.

Looking at these tips, it may seem that good advertising involves manipulating the emotions of your customers.

It does.

Selling is a blatant form of emotional manipulation that involves convincing your customer that they want to buy your product or service, and they want to do it now.

Is this unethical? Well, it can be. It depends where you draw the line.

In point 9, I said that your sales message could include a sense of urgency. A common ploy on the web is to include a claim like "Offer closes this Saturday". If you go back to the site the following week, though, the offer is still available. If you were tricked by such a claim, would you order from that company again? Would you recommend it to your friends?

So, by all means, use the tips above to write as persuasively as you can, but remember that if you attract sales by deceiving your customers you risk legal action, poor word of mouth, no repeat business and refund requests.

So, be as persuasive as you can possibly be, but avoid the temptation to be too persuasive.

Ten tips for better e-mail

Ten tips for better e-mail

by

Tim North, http://www.scribe.com.au

E-mail is frequently written quickly and often poorly. The tips that follow should help you to write e-mail that will be well received every time.

1. Pay attention to punctuation, spelling, grammar and capitals.

how ofen do yoo receeve e-mail ritten like this!!!!!

Many e-mail messages contain poor spelling and grammar, incorrect use of capital letters and/or poor punctuation. Such messages look amateurish and inevitably produce a poor impression of the sender.

2. Read the previous tip again.

Seriously, I can't overstate just how important it is to write well. The standard of contemporary writing is quite poor -- both on the Internet and in general use. It's easy to find errors in most written sources. Stand out from the crowd. Write well.

3. Your subject line should be descriptive.

Many people get dozens (or even hundreds) of e-mail messages per day, and with so much of it being spam (i.e. unsolicited sales messages), your message may be deleted unread if the subject line makes it look unimportant or spamish.

Another reason to make your subject clear is to help the recipient find it later. Many people archive months – or even years -- worth of e-mail. A clear subject line will make your message easier to find, and this will be appreciated.

4. Use short paragraphs and leave lines between them.

On-screen text is harder to read than printed text due to its lower resolution. You can make things easier for your readers by using short, clearly separated paragraphs.

You'll notice that all of the paragraphs in this article are fairly short (typically, no more than four or five lines) and are separated by blank lines for clarity. You might also care to indent the text on the first line of each paragraph.

5. Tidy up all those ">" characters.

When replying to a message (or forwarding it), most e-mail programs put a ">" character in front of each line of the original text, like so:

        > This is the text of the original

        > message that you are replying to.

Your reply goes here.

This happens each time the message is replied to (or forwarded). The result is that some messages end up with many ">" characters at the start of each line. This causes the line length to increase, and the text can wrap awkwardly and become difficult to read. For example:

        > > > > This is the text of the

        original

        > > > > message that you are

        replying to.

        > > > >

If you receive a message like this, don't just forward it on. Do everyone a favor and spend a few minutes tidying it up.

6. Don't send unsolicited attachments.

That three megabyte movie file may be the funniest thing you've seen for a long time, but don't automatically send it to everyone you know. Ask them first if they want to receive it. Many folks still receive their e-mail via modem, and at three or four kilobytes per second, your three megabyte file is going to lock up their Internet connection for quarter of an hour or so. Be polite and ask first.

7. Ensure that your PC is protected against viruses.

Unless you take suitable precautions (like regularly downloading the latest definition file for your antivirus software), you run the risk of your machine becoming virus infected. Far worse, you run the risk of unknowingly sending virus-infected e-mail messages to everyone in your address book. This is not a way to win friends.

8. Don't type in ALL CAPITALS.

There are two reasons for this. First, text in all capitals is harder to read. Second, typing in all capitals is considered a faux pas by most Internet users, and doing so may see your message ignored.

9. Thou shalt not spam!

It doesn't matter how good a deal you've got. It doesn't matter that you're just going to do it once. It doesn't matter that everyone else is doing it. That doesn't make it right for *you* to do it. Don't send spam.

10. Wait a while before sending your message.

Proofreading your own work is a risky business. I'm a writer and proofreader by profession, but mistakes still manage to slip through in my own writing. The best strategy I know of is to put my writing aside for a while then look at it afresh. It's amazing what will often just leap out at you.

So if you have the time, wait an hour -- or even just ten minutes -- before you press the "send" button. This will let you read your message again and, hopefully, spot any typos or other weaknesses before it goes out.

Armed with these ten tips, your e-mail should be well received every time. Good luck!

Ten tips for better business writing

Ten tips for better business writing

As a proofreader of business writing, I see many of the same errors made again and again. Errors in your writing (be they in advertising copy, correspondence, or a web site) are more serious, I believe, than most people realize.

Why? Well, the standard of your writing has always been important. Today, though, more than ever before, FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT. We are bombarded by the written word in its many forms -- books, pamphlets, magazines, signs, e-mail, web sites and many other media.

We are all suffering from information overload and are forced to find ways of screening out as much as we can. We thus tend to make quick decisions on what to read and what not to. First impressions increasingly determine what we read and what we don't, and poor writing leads to a poor first impression.

The following list of tips should help you to avoid some of the most common slip-ups.

1. Capitals: Avoid the temptation to capitalize words in the middle of a sentence Just To Provide Emphasis Like This. If you want to be more emphatic, consider using bold face, italics, color or larger text.

2. Commas: The most common use of the comma is to join together short sentences to make a single longer sentence. We do this with one of the following small joining words: and, or, but, yet, for, nor, or so. For example: We have finished the work, and we are looking forward to the weekend.

Notice that the two halves of this sentence could each be sentences in their own right. They thus need to be separated with a comma and joining word. In the next example, though, we don't need a comma:

We have finished the work and are looking forward to the weekend.

The halves of that sentence could not stand alone, so no comma was used.

3. Ellipsis: The ellipsis is a series of three -- and ONLY THREE -- full stops used to mark missing words, an uncertain pause, or an abrupt interruption. Avoid the temptation to use six or seven dots -- it looks amateurish. For example, we write:

Niles:  But Miss Fine's age is only ...

Fran:   Young! Miss Fine's age is only young!

4. Excessive punctuation: Only one exclamation mark or question mark should be used at a time. Consider the following over-punctuated examples:

Buy now!!!

Great bargains!!!!!!!!!!

Excessive punctuation looks too much like hysteria and detracts from your credibility. Avoid it.

5. Headings: For long works, establish a clear hierarchy of headings. Microsoft Word's heading styles are great for this. (They also allow you to automatically create a table of contents.)

6. Hyphenating prefixes: Most prefixes don't need a hyphen; i.e. we write "coexist", not "co-exist". There are exceptions, though. The prefixes "self-" and "ex-" are almost always hyphenated.

7. Numbers: Numbers of ten or less are normally written as words.

8. Quotation marks: Users of American English should use double quotes (" "). Users of British English should choose either single quotes (' ') or double quotes and stick with them for the whole document. Incidentally, British English usage is increasingly moving towards single quotes.

9. Spaces: Modern style is to use a single space at the end of a sentence, not two. Also, most punctuation marks (e.g. commas, full stops, question marks) are not preceded by a space.

10. Tables: Set table text one or two points smaller than the main body text and in a sans-serif font such as Arial or Verdana. Avoid vertical lines as they tend to add unnecessary clutter.

Armed with these simple guidelines, your writing should be well received every time.

Good luck!

Ten tips for better business writing

Ten tips for better business writing

As a proofreader of business writing, I see many of the same errors made again and again. Errors in your writing (be they in advertising copy, correspondence, or a web site) are more serious, I believe, than most people realize.

Why? Well, the standard of your writing has always been important. Today, though, more than ever before, FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT. We are bombarded by the written word in its many forms -- books, pamphlets, magazines, signs, e-mail, web sites and many other media.

We are all suffering from information overload and are forced to find ways of screening out as much as we can. We thus tend to make quick decisions on what to read and what not to. First impressions increasingly determine what we read and what we don't, and poor writing leads to a poor first impression.

The following list of tips should help you to avoid some of the most common slip-ups.

1. Capitals: Avoid the temptation to capitalize words in the middle of a sentence Just To Provide Emphasis Like This. If you want to be more emphatic, consider using bold face, italics, color or larger text.

2. Commas: The most common use of the comma is to join together short sentences to make a single longer sentence. We do this with one of the following small joining words: and, or, but, yet, for, nor, or so. For example: We have finished the work, and we are looking forward to the weekend.

Notice that the two halves of this sentence could each be sentences in their own right. They thus need to be separated with a comma and joining word. In the next example, though, we don't need a comma:

We have finished the work and are looking forward to the weekend.

The halves of that sentence could not stand alone, so no comma was used.

3. Ellipsis: The ellipsis is a series of three -- and ONLY THREE -- full stops used to mark missing words, an uncertain pause, or an abrupt interruption. Avoid the temptation to use six or seven dots -- it looks amateurish. For example, we write:

Niles:  But Miss Fine's age is only ...

Fran:   Young! Miss Fine's age is only young!

4. Excessive punctuation: Only one exclamation mark or question mark should be used at a time. Consider the following over-punctuated examples:

Buy now!!!

Great bargains!!!!!!!!!!

Excessive punctuation looks too much like hysteria and detracts from your credibility. Avoid it.

5. Headings: For long works, establish a clear hierarchy of headings. Microsoft Word's heading styles are great for this. (They also allow you to automatically create a table of contents.)

6. Hyphenating prefixes: Most prefixes don't need a hyphen; i.e. we write "coexist", not "co-exist". There are exceptions, though. The prefixes "self-" and "ex-" are almost always hyphenated.

7. Numbers: Numbers of ten or less are normally written as words.

8. Quotation marks: Users of American English should use double quotes (" "). Users of British English should choose either single quotes (' ') or double quotes and stick with them for the whole document. Incidentally, British English usage is increasingly moving towards single quotes.

9. Spaces: Modern style is to use a single space at the end of a sentence, not two. Also, most punctuation marks (e.g. commas, full stops, question marks) are not preceded by a space.

10. Tables: Set table text one or two points smaller than the main body text and in a sans-serif font such as Arial or Verdana. Avoid vertical lines as they tend to add unnecessary clutter.

Armed with these simple guidelines, your writing should be well received every time.

Good luck!

The perils of using jargon

The perils of using jargon

Recently I spoke with loans officers at several of my local banks in order to find out the costs associated with a housing loan. One of the things that struck me in all of these conversations was the astonishing (to me) level of jargon used by the bank staff when explaining their products to customers.

Phrases such as "interest capitalization loans" and "interest only loans" are obviously clear as day to the people who use them, but the first time I heard them they did nothing but confuse me.

Let me be honest here. I'm guilty of the same thing myself. When speaking as a proofreader, I'll sometimes use the jargon of my profession not realizing that it's confusing to others. And when

I speak as a computer consultant, the opportunity for jargon is even worse!

Unless they're trying to be pretentious, people don't usually use jargon in a deliberate attempt to confuse others. It's generally unintentional. We all have subjects in which we have more expertise than the people around us, and it can be easy to forget that the language we use can be confusing to others.

How then can we avoid using jargon? Whether speaking or writing, the key is to be absolutely clear on what you can expect your audience to already know. If you're not sure, ask them.

The upshot of this is that we may need to use different language when explaining the same concept to different audiences. A "one size fits all" approach is often inappropriate.

For example, if I'm delivering a presentation to a group of engineers, I'll use the necessary technical language of that profession in order to ensure brevity and precision. No one in such a group would mind the use of such language. Quite the reverse -- if I were to "dumb down" the talk, it would be of lesser value and probably poorly received.

If I was presenting the same information to middle managers, I'd employ different language. If pitched at the right level, they wouldn't consider it to be dumbed down; rather, they would (hopefully) find it clear and comprehensible.

An untrained worker overhearing the middle-managers' presentation may still go away thinking that it was jargonistic, though. The lesson here should be clear: one person's jargon is another's clear speech.

The onus, then, is on *you* to know what your audience can deal with and to explain your material in those terms. This can be a great challenge -- particularly if your own knowledge of the material is a bit shaky.

Should I "boldly go" or "go boldly"?

Should I "boldly go" or "go boldly"?

by

Tim North, http://www.scribe.com.au

    Space, the final frontier.

    These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.

    It's five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds,

    to seek out new life and new civilizations,

    TO BOLDLY GO where no man has gone before!

   

Thus starts the famous voice-over to Star Trek. Quite apart from the 1960s sexism, it raises the burning question that has probably long been gnawing at you: should Captain Kirk have said "to boldly go" or "to go boldly"?

To put it in linguistic geek speak: "Are split infinitives really a tool of the devil?"  :-)

Just in case the issue hasn't been gnawing at you, let's start with a quick review: what is a split infinitive? Well it's quite simple. An infinitive is a form of a verb (a doing word) that (usually) starts with the word "to". For example, "to run", "to go" and "to laugh" are all infinitives.

When we put a another word between "to" and the verb, we're said to have "split" the infinitive. For example: "to unsteadily run", "to boldly go" or "to quietly laugh".

Are these grammatically naughty or not?

Short answer: no.

The traditional "rule" that one should not split infinitives stems from the fact that it is not done in Latin. Purists argue (incorrectly in my opinion) that because Latin doesn't do it, English shouldn't.

In his wonderful book "The Mother Tongue", prolific author Bill Bryson provides the following simple rebuttal:

I can think of two very good reasons for not splitting an infinitive.

1. Because you feel that the rules of English ought to conform to the grammatical precepts of a language that died a thousand years ago.

   

2. Because you wish to cling to a pointless affectation of usage that is without the support of any recognized authority of the last 200 years, even at the cost of composing sentences that are ambiguous, inelegant, and patently contorted.

Nicely said, Bill!