"what makes a good writer good, and a bad writer bad?"
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
- 1. And a Bad Writer Bad?
What Makes a Good Writer Good?
Presented by Congree, Inc.
June 29, 2011
Glendale, CA
2. Outline
Meeting the Characters and Setting the Stage
Understanding the Challenges
Locking in Good Writing Habits
Avoiding Bad Habits
Conceptualizing Standards and Practices
Implementing Standards and Practices (Congree Demo)
Questions and Answers
3. The Writers:
Gary is a Good Writer he keeps to standards and practices that make
his writing valuable to his employers and clear for his
audience.
Bob is a Bad Writer he doesnt know what makes writing good, or just
doesnt care. Bob could use some improvement.
4. The Challenge:
Gary and Bob are each assigned half of the technical writing work
on an important product manual for their company. Their boss
expects it to be done quickly, efficiently, and clearly.
5. The Twist:
Que?
Gary and Bob also need to take into account that the manual will be
translated into Spanish by the companys localization team this
means their writing has to be as amenable to translation as
possible.
6. Getting Started:
Gary always follows a few basic principles before he starts
writing:
He speaks to the engineers to understand the terms hell need to
use.
He speaks to his marketing people to understand the audience that
will be reading the manual.
He consults his corporate style guide to ensure he knows the proper
phrasing and punctuation, etc.
He subordinates the uniqueness of his own writing style to ensuring
consistency in the text that he (and others) is writing.
Gary chooses the proper editor for the job, given his
options.
7. Getting Started (wrong):
Bob follows a similar process to Gary, but omits several key
items:
Bob checks his terminology guide, but doesnt consult the terms
team.
Bob understands his assignment, but doesnt understand for whom the
assignment is ultimately destined.
Bob uses the editor hes familiar with, even if its not the best
choice for the job.
Bob never considers that his work is going to need to be
translated, and instead focuses on writing in the ways that he was
trained.
8. Which Text Editor Should You Use?
?
Editors are generally a matter of personal preference, but ensure
that the tool you want to use is the right one for your particular
area.
9. Know Your Audience
Remember that all technical writing does not need to be technical,
nor does it need to be complex.
Ask yourself:
Who is going to read this manual both drafts, and after
release?
What is the goal that Im trying to get across with every section I
write?
Dont treat them as if theyre like this:
If your readers are more like this:
10. Know the Style Guide:
Does your company have an official style guide, or do you use a
pre-fab one? Is it modified?
Understand the rules of the style guide, but know when to bend them
for the sake of clarity and consistency.
If you dont have a style guide, consult with all the other writers
and editors on the project to ensure youre all coming from the same
place.
Always think about tone.
Take into account outside issues, such as the need to make text
amenable to translation, when developing and implementing style
guides.
11. Automate Consistency to Increase Creativity
When we write in any context, we want to inject the text with our
own voice and thats good!
However, too often our own unique writing style leads to
inconsistencies in the tone, terminology, style, or diction of a
text and thats bad!
We can remain creative and unique, yet still maintain consistency
in our text by ensuring we stick to style guides, and by ensuring
we automate the processes by which we structure our
documents.
12. Implementation
Even if we plan properly and are completely satisfied with our
setup, the biggest challenge is ensuring implementation of our
rules.
- Without an automated means to conform text to our corporate style, were exposing ourselves to human error and limiting our potential consistency.
13. Software can give us the tools we need to conform our writers to our style guides, custom or standard, and do so automatically and within the editors we choose.