The Official Publication of the STC Technical Editing SIG
On Tuesday 15 October 2024 at 1:30 PM ET (click here for your local time), join the STC Coalition online for a moderated group chat on helping writers grow through the function of editing.
Topics of discussion include:
For tickets, go to https://www.tickettailor.com/events/stccoalition/1389240
The goal of the STC Technical Editing SIG (TESIG) is to provide its members with high quality information about editing processes and best practices, as well as resources that demonstrate the value of editing and editors in an organization.
To meet this goal, we are happy to announce EdEx24, an online mini-conference dedicated to the field of technical editing and to technical editing practitioners.
EdEx24 will be held on 19 November 2024 from 8:45 AM to 12:00 PM ET (for your local time, go to https://tinyurl.com/yffvfspx). Come hear the following fascinating speakers:
We especially encourage students and new technical editing practitioners to join us!
To see details about the presentations and to purchase tickets for EdEx24, go to https://tinyurl.com/mrj62na5.
The price of the tickets is for the entire mini-conference, and attendees can join at any time. All sessions will be recorded, and the recordings and slides will be made available to attendees after the mini-conference.
EdEx24 attendees who are STC members can earn up to 2 CEUs for the full half-day program. For credit, submit a request for CEUs to certification@stc.org.
Consumers of technical content are hardly a captive audience. Typically, our readers need help setting up a product and troubleshooting errors. Rarely, if ever, do technical content consumers browse our websites and white papers for entertainment. Our consumers are purpose-driven. Therefore, technical content creators must be accurate, explicit, concise, and consistent.
The bottom line is that consistency and quality matter.
Consistency is one of the fundamental differences between technical writing and other writing styles. Effective technical communication is uniform. The margin of interpretation for technical content should be next to non-existent. So, how does a team of 15 technical writers tasked with creating and maintaining hundreds of documents write in a way that is indistinguishable to an untrained eye?
An internal style guide, that’s how.
Continue reading “The Fundamentals of Technical Communication: Throw Out Your Thesaurus and Pick Up a Style Guide”
The goal of the STC Technical Editing SIG (TESIG) is to provide its members with high quality information about editing processes and best practices, as well as resources that demonstrate the value of editing and editors in an organization.
To meet this goal, we are happy to announce EdEx23, an online mini-conference dedicated to the field of technical editing and to technical editing practitioners.
EdEx23 will be held on 14 November 2023 from 8:45 AM to 12:00 PM ET (for your local time, go to https://tinyurl.com/cw228pyx). Come hear the following fascinating speakers:
We especially encourage students and new technical editing practitioners to join us!
To see details about the presentations and to purchase tickets for EdEx23, go to https://tinyurl.com/35w7ae8p.
The price of the tickets is for the entire mini-conference, and attendees can join at any time. All sessions will be recorded, and the recordings and slides will be made available to attendees after the mini-conference.
EdEx23 attendees who are STC members can earn up to 2 CEUs for the full half-day program. For credit, submit a request for CEUs to certification@stc.org.
Wednesdays, 13 September to 1 November 2023 at 6:30 to 7:30 PM ET
(click here for your time zone)
Instructor: The TESIG’s own Kelly Schrank!
Registration closes 12 September 2023
Whether building a new department, working as a department of one, or joining a new or existing department, many technical communicators have found themselves working on documents without the benefit of a style guide.
In this course, as a group we will create a new style guide from scratch, incorporate common elements, and decide together what’s needed and what might be better relegated to other documents or resources. From grammar and punctuation to style and formatting, we’ll go through the process together. We’ll tackle this as the big project it is, by planning its scope and schedule, including tracking status, training others, and gathering feedback.
After the course, everyone will be emailed the finished document in Microsoft Word to use as is or as a template for their own style guide.
To register, go to https://www.stc.org/course/creating-and-using-a-department-style-guide-september-2023/.