On their site, authors Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman discuss grammar, etymology, usage, and more in a very clever and entertaining way. Their blog, Q&A, and myths sections are full of useful information for technical editing practitioners, who sometimes need refresher courses (or source material to convince doubters!) about the rules of the English language.
Four Questions for Considering the Needs and Circumstances of Our Audience
A company must communicate with its customers; however, whether these communications are valuable to the audience is another question.
A company’s content is often influenced by the individuals who internally surround the document rather than the external target audience, which forces technical communicators to sometimes release content that does not accurately reflect or meet readers’ needs. This type of content creation process can lead companies to measure their content’s success by how it satisfies internal (often managerial) opinions rather than how well the document fulfills the content needs of the intended audience.
Luckily, technical editors have the power to correct this corporate messaging problem by championing readership interests, needs, and sensitivities during document creation and review process—safeguarding the audience from irrelevant, insensitive, or burdensome content.
Continue reading “Four Questions for Considering the Needs and Circumstances of Our Audience”From Around the Web: Editors – The Writer’s Natural Enemy
Did the headline grab your attention?
Author George R. R. Martin (known to many as the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, which are the basis for the hit TV series Game of Thrones) intended for it to do exactly that.
Continue reading “From Around the Web: Editors – The Writer’s Natural Enemy”This Worked for Me: Three Collaboration Tools for Technical Editors Who Use Word
Many businesses use Microsoft Word as their primary tool for creating documentation and other digital texts. Using Word can be challenging when performing edits with multiple subject matter experts (SMEs) and individual contributors with varied writing skill levels.
As a technical communicator who was tasked with managing product suite documentation in Word, I had to find ways to streamline technical editing. After months of trial and error, I found three collaboration tools that integrate with Word that worked for me.
Continue reading “This Worked for Me: Three Collaboration Tools for Technical Editors Who Use Word”New on the Shelf: Dreyer’s English
A style guide for writing correctly on the New York Times’ bestseller list? An editor interviewed on NPR?
Be still my beating heart!
Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief of Random House, has just published “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style”, and it is making a huge impression on many people. Who would’ve thought that there was such a thirst for clear and and concise guidelines about how to write better English?
To order this amazing book (and to read glowing reviews of it), click here.
If you order this book and want to write a review of it for Corrigo, please contact me at editor@stc-techedit.org.