Save the Semicolon

Do you ever find yourself writing a process that gets a bit complicated? Uh, yeah. All the time, right? I’m not talking about NASA flight checks. Frankly, if the process involves more than a straight, linear path, then it gets hard to keep in my head. If you DO have an alligator, go on to Step [...]

Have you ever gotten to a point in a project where you’re waiting for other people before you can continue? I have. And it’s frustrating, sitting there twiddling my thumbs (and maybe not getting paid) while I wait for some harried developer to get back to me. But lately, I’ve done things a little differently. [...]

I’ve talked before about the importance, nay, the joy, of using styles with a word processor. If you’re not sure what I mean by “styles,” then have a look below for a link to my earlier post (and very short video) on what styles can do for you. Once you’ve embraced styles, Microsoft Word has [...]

Experienced tech writers have gone through this a million times, but for the new writers out there: beware the job that’s due ASAP. A client requesting a document “ASAP” kind of reminds me of a two-year-old using a curse word. On the one hand, it’s hilarious. But on the other, it could be embarrassing and [...]

What is this? If you’re not sure what you’re looking at, you’re not alone. That black and white mess is called a QR code (for quick response). If you have a smartphone, you can download a free QR reader to it, then point it at the image to decode it. In this case, you’d see [...]

The words “which” and “that” have a long and tangled history together. I’d guess that most native English-speakers don’t recognize a difference between the words in most sentences. For example: The spaceship that looked like a tulip crashed into my swimming pool. The spaceship which looked like a tulip crashed into my swimming pool. Most [...]

Tech writers are often asked to communicate nine different things in a document. But it usually pays to find the one Most Important Thing….

Tech communicators have to know stuff that our audience doesn’t know. But we also have to know WHICH stuff our audience doesn’t know….

There was huge amount of red on the page from the editor’s pen. My document looked like a victim in a slasher film. You know, the half-drunk, half naked teenager who goes into the woods ALL ALONE….

There it is. The sentence that you polished till it gleamed has been mangled. You wrote it one way, but they published something different….