The Golden 80s

Have you ever wondered what constitutes a crime committed by an editor or a reviewer? In the days of proofreading, there were standard symbols associated with the changes to be made in a copy or manuscript. When it came to desktop publishing, the editor or reviewer used to turn the Track Changes feature in a word processing software like Microsoft Word on. Technical writing tools such as Adobe FrameMaker and Madcap Flare enable commenting on a document. Adobe Acrobat allows comments in PDF docs. So, despite all these modern facilities, what if someone goes to the extent of editing text on the sly in a document? Edits that the poor writer discovers later and finds them damn wrong. One reason may be overconfidence. The reviewer would have been so overconfident and would have never imagined that the edits would be wrong. The reviewer must not be knowing that industry practice provides the benefit of doubt to the writer. The mantra, "When in doubt, check it out." applies to...

The phrase, Elegant Variation, was coined by Henry W. Fowler in The King's English (1906). The essence of that term will help Indian writers to understand how carefully one should write.  "...The use of pronouns is itself a form of variation, designed to avoid ungainly repetition; and we are only going one step further when, instead of either the original noun or the pronoun, we use some new equivalent..." Fowler then lays down two guidelines: "...It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules, but two general principles may be suggested: (1) Variation should take place only when there is some awkwardness, such as ambiguity or noticeable monotony, in the word avoided. (2) The substitute should be of a purely pronominal character, a substitute and nothing more; there should be no killing of two birds with one stone." Try to practice it. It is very interesting.

We, three kids, were not good in solving mathematical problems in school textbooks. There were no outside help, and  we were happily "stuck" with our inability and hereditary weakness in solving the problems. After a while, we never bothered to revisit why we were "stuck". But we never "struck" anyone. We were simply "stuck." And in the last few weeks I heard "struck" again, as the developer was finding it difficult to fix a "small" issue. So, developers will also get "stuck" somewhere. Candid admission anyway. "Struck" is the past tense and past participle of the verb Strike . As a noun, stuck meant "something causing delay or difficulty." Next time, when your tongue inserts an unnecessary "u" in before "r", just strike it off. Otherwise, you will be"stuck" like a door that got closed when the dog was half out of the door. And nobody held the door ajar for the...

Is it Walk in, Walk In, or walk-in? The word, walk-in , appears as a noun and an adjective in Merriam Webster online .  I could not find the word without the hyphen. The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary website showed the hyphenated word only. As you know, the word means someone who walks in to a place without an appointment. Typical examples are walk-in customers for a bank, walk-in interviews for fresh graduates, and walk-in patients in a hospital.

The debate on whether "and/or" is correct or not refuses to die down. It was pleasing to see an entry on 'and/or" in the Chicago Manual of Style FAQ site (Look at the March Q&A section). In the March Q&A, CMOS says, "... and/or “can often be replaced by and or or with no loss in meaning." For multiple choices, CMOS says use or . . . or both . Despite knowing this, we make mistakes, right?

Can the legendary 5 Ws' and one H, widely used in journalism, applicable to technical writing as well? I had this doubt after I viewed a presentation titled, How to Write . Let us look what 5 W's and One in journalism. It means: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Does who, when, and where matter for a scenario where a user is operating a software? I have my doubts. Anyway, this is an interesting point and I will keep it in my mind whether 5Ws' and One H can indeed be a guideline for technical writing. In journalis, the inverted pyramid style evolved due to space constraints in a newspaper. For a newspaper, space is a very important thing, because ads occupy some amount of space in a newspaper page. Moreover, the technique was also useful to readers who want to get all the necessary information by reading the first paragraph or lead. It is difficult to apply the same in the strictest sense to a user manual. While space is finite in a newspaper, it is not so for a user manual....

Jyoti Sanyal was a former assistant editor and columnist for The Statesman. His book, Indlish, is an excellent guide to how Indians should use contemporary English. The book is an essential read for those in a writing career, including technical writers and journalists. The author identifies the four "grey" areas Indians fail to rectify in their writing. He also provides examples and tips on how these gaps can be plugged. The following grey areas pinpointed by Sanyal in his book applies to technical writing as well: Syntax : A primary reason why overseas clients dub Indian technical writing as bad is the writer's abject failure to understand the English syntax. Very few has a good understanding of the sentence structure and rules that govern sentence structure. Very few spend time to learn how English is used all over the world. Most of them consider writing long sentences as equivalent to their mastery over English. Technical writers argue with editors saying that a ...

I was reading Keith Solty's blog for a few days. I realised that if you are following a blogger, you should read the posts right from the start. By doing this, you will get a better sense of the person, topics, interests, and so on. It is easier to connect with the blogger if you follow the blog from the start. I did find Keith's posts very informative.

Geoff Hart rips apart the myths in technial writing. Great post.

Adobe FrameMaker – Adobe FrameMaker 8 software is a powerful authoring and publishing solution for technical communicators and an essential upgrade for existing FrameMaker users who want to author and publish technical documentation in multiple languages, says Adobe. It supports Unicode, rich media, DITA and single sourcing. RoboHelp - The most sought after Help authoring tool (HAT). RoboHelp 7 now supports Unicode, translational workflow, importing Word files, importing FrameMaker files and styles, user defined variables, and powerful collaboration. Microsoft Word – Needs no explanation. Unstable for big documents. Interleaf – Competitor of FrameMaker. Wikipedia says Interleaf provides an integrated set of tools for creating compound documents: word processing, graphics, data-driven business charts, tables, equations, image editing, automated page layout, book building-- including automatic index and table of contents, and conditional document assembly. Arbortext - XML-based publi...

Many people think that proofreading is just another word for editing. Some believe that it can be classified as another type of editing. They will argue that both essentially mean the same. It is unfortunate to see people from the publishing as well as the media industry holding the same opinion about the topic. The only answer to the controversy is to put the facts straight. The word “proof” in printing means a kind of a test sheet or draft that is checked for text and graphics and colors before going to the press or publishing. This proof is created after all the editing has been completed. The proof created is also checked for grammar, punctuation, and corrections are marked with standard proofreading marks. This “proof reading” can be termed as the last stage of the editing process. It is never a part of the actual editing process or copy editing. Editing, on the other hand, starts the moment you receive the first draft or manuscript. If it is a document, it is checked for the cont...

The noun diagram is also a transitive verb. Check Merriam Webster .

Techncial writers, please read this post. I am of the opinion that users don't read 90 percent of the help files and user guides. Any comments?

10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid, screams a headline from techrepublic.Copy and paste the link below to read the article. http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10881-6075621.htmlrom

http://perfectly-write-words.blogspot.com/ http://chompchomp.com/csfs01/csfs01.htm (Exercises) http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001517.shtml http://www.proz.com/topic/21937 http://www.prc.dk/english/manuals.htm http://www.journalism.ku.edu/school/bremnertest.shtml (editing test) http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/022703.htm

Let me start with the following example: # include main ( ) { printf ("hello, world\n"); } All C programs starts with the execution of the function main . All C programs must include a function with the name main. The round brackets or parentheses means that main is a function. The empty brackets mean that the function main expects no arguments. The statements of the function are enclosed in curly brackets or braces. C statements are expression statements : an expression followed by a semicolon. For example, i = 0; or i = i + 1; printf prints the characters within the quotes on the screen. Thes characters "hello, world\n" is called a string or character string or string constant. Strings are always put between inverted commas. A semicolon after characters indicates that it is a statement. "n' is the escape sequence, because when ENTER is pressed it goes to the next line and not a new line or paragraph. VARIABLES : In C, there are two main types of vari...

The different levels of computer programming are: 1. First generation-Language the computer can obey instantly. In the form of 0's and 1's. The command tells the computer what to do and the operand tells the computer where to find and store the data. 2. Second generation-Also called Assembly language. In this language 0's and 1's are replaced by symbolic codes written by humans. This include mnemonic codes and symbolic addresses. The instructions are of 3 parts;Label or tag (symbols defined by coders), OP code (code that tells the computer what to do) and Operand (tells the computer where to store and locate information). 3. Third- Also called High-level languages-More procedure and problem solving oriented. Language is written using alphabets, numbers and special characters. Rules called Syntax is developed. Eg: C, Fortran, COBOL, Java. 4. Fourth-Non-procedural, Very High-Level language. Applications can bew created and information easily gathered. Eg: IBM's Que...