In five words, sum up your user documentation/user assistance

We posted a question on LinkedIn and Twitter, “In five words, sum up your user documentation/user assistance”. Here are the replies we received: Utpal Bhatt Technically correct, complete, searchable example   Andrew Lastrina Structured, concise, translatable, unrepetitive, transformable   Dr Meghashri Dalvi Get more out of it!   Aruna Panangipally Makes you effective and efficient!… Read more »

The risks with Technical Author certification

As part of the attempt to make technical writing similar to other professions, there have been a number of moves by different technical communication societies to introduce certification. This can be a good thing, but there are some dangers with it as well. Certification usually involves some training and a test. Students can be accredited… Read more »

What is topic-based authoring?

In an upcoming episode of the Cherryleaf podcast, we’ll be tackling an issue that is important to many Technical Authors: topic-based authoring. It’s something that can be tricky to explain, and there can be differences of opinions towards it. We’d like to represent the different viewpoints, particularly  towards two fundamental questions: What is topic-based authoring?… Read more »

Changes to our online technical communication training courses

We’ve made a few changes to our online training courses, to make it easier to order and understand. There are now just three online courses: Technical Author/technical writing Advanced technical communication End user documentation writing skills for developers We’ve moved all the other courses we had previously into a single, advanced technical communication skills course…. Read more »

New online Microsoft writing style guide

Microsoft has released the latest edition of its writing style guidelines as a website: “Welcome to the Microsoft Writing Style Guide, your guide to writing style and terminology for all communication—whether an app, a website, or a white paper. If you write about computer technology, this guide is for you. Today, lots of people are… Read more »