Plainly Speaking: Meet Plain Language
Welcome to the first post from our newest regular guest blogger, Karen Field Carroll. Karen sent us a post last month on how technical communicators can (and should) support the Plain Regulations Act,...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: Be the User’s Mentor, Not the Company’s Mouthpiece
Today is the second post from our newest regular guest blogger, Karen Field Carroll. Karen sent us a post two months ago on how technical communicators can (and should) support the Plain Regulations...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: Adopt the User’s Perspective
Rolling through Roswell, NM, over Thanksgiving, I saw this ad for a local bank on a billboard: Lending Should Be Easy. We Make Sure It Is. The message contains a fundamental flaw. Can you see it? The...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: Ditch the Sales Pitch
My husband is what I call an “accidental saver.” Every evening, he empties his pockets of coins and dumps them into a plastic dish on his desk. Over months, the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: Jargon Jive
The one thing every tech writer hears early in a career is, “Avoid jargon in your writing.” Sage advice. But what is “jargon” really? I did some research. The best definition that I’ve found comes from...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: Adversarial Adverbs
Ah, the humble adverb. Writers use adverbs to emphasize a point, deepen a sentiment, refine an action. The problem is, adverbs do just the opposite. Consider this sentence. “I am truly sorry.” The...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: Only You Can Make it Plain
Recently I wrote an article for a charity newsletter about the charity’s annual banquet. I opened with this paragraph: We’d had a lovely evening. As I sat at our table at the banquet last month,...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: The Language Link
I’ve worked in technical communication for almost two decades. I’ve written user guides, online help, newsletters, tutorials, reference guides, API specifications, and user interface text. I’ve written...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: A Recipe for Confusion
If you’re rootin’ around for examples of bad how-to writing, look no further than your kitchen. Chances are any cookbook recipe for roast chicken, braised pork, or berry cobbler bursts with bundled...
View ArticlePlainly Speaking: A Task Is a Task Is a….Procedure?
The other day, I got to thinking about tasks and procedures. We had just remodeled our kitchen, and I was flipping through the user manual for our new dishwasher, looking for a section that walked me...
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