The Art of Technical Writing 2.0

Two posts in one day is a first for me. At least on this blog

Was reading this post on the Men With Pens blog and it made me think. Do read that, it is a nice post.

For the past few days I have been observing the variety of styles in which emails are written. Here are a few:

Subject = Emailофис столове

This is not bad at all but one must append “<eom>” at the end of the message. It’s not a good idea to put a link in the subject though, for the simple reason it may not be clickable in some Emailing services.

No Salutation

I actually like the absence of salutation. though it could come of as rude. I might not do it unto others but don’t mind it done to me. For office communication ‘Dear XYZ’ is out, one must just reserve it for their dear ones. A ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’ is what I use usually, but I will gladly do away with it, if we all do. It isn’t reeally required. Don’t you think so?

Endgame

This is treacherous and it looks really silly, when person has signed name and has a signature below with the name again. And a good way to sign off is, ‘Best’, ‘Regards’, ‘Thanks’ (but there should not be more than one thanks in one email. Again we can do without it. But this a personal touch, and sometimes in a dry email, this is all there is.

Body

I came across this site suggested in one of the comments on men with pens blog – five.sentenc.es – and I like the idea of keeping the email size, 2-5 sentences. Though don’t make the sentences long and winding like a bad school boy. Once in a while when you have more to tell it can’t be avoided.

Multicolored In-line Comments

Have you come across such mails? They are the most fun. And are close to being an online catfight. It’s best avoided as it shows aggression. It can be met with only two reactions, the calm will laugh at you and the angry will write back with equal fervor (much to the amusement of the calm, who could be the third person on mail). If you have to answer things, I would suggest make bullets and keep the message in the thread.

Gmail Threads

Gmail is worth being purely for this feature.  It can be used as a social messenger (alongwith the Reply All capability). Though this is not recommended in official correspondence, only amongst friends who have loads of time.

Reply All

This is scary. I am never sure when to reply and when to reply all. Sometimes it’s not a difficult decision, when pure information is being distributed. But when you are distributing what you “think”, be sure you are not offending anyone.

And finally, don’t use these tips for love emailing. Remember your target audience here too.

(This post is for my friends who have not yet discovered the goodness of RSS feeds.)

Firstly what is a feed?

One eats food at regular/irregular intervals. Let’s say that every time you eat, it constitutes a feed. Similarly many sites publish content at different intervals. And every time fresh content is available, it means there is something new available to consume, hence feed.

How it works?

In most news sites and blogs, content is arranged in a particular manner. A blog post can have the following different parts – title, date, blog post text. Usually when content is arranged in such a manner it is “feed friendly” and it is easy for RSS softwares to read them and display them in different feed readers.

How can it be useful?

You love to read a variety of blogs and news sites but it may not be easy to remember and follow them all. Bookmarking is an option but it does not inform you of updates. So if a site has an RSS feed, you can subscribe to it and get the content delivered to your feed reader, which is similar to your email inbox.

How do I know if a site has an RSS feed?

Usually all sites that have a feed associated with it are designated with the RSS icon. Latest web browsers also indicate if the web page has an RSS Feed. In Mozilla Firefox it appears in the area where the URL appears. In case of Internet Explorer 7.0 it usually appears in the toolbar area.

The RSS feed icon looks like this –

How do I subscribe to an RSS feed?

This can also be done in multiple ways. One way is give your RSS feed reading software the URL of the site and let it find a feed that you can subscribe to.

Or

You can click the RSS Feed icon on the web page. Clicking this icon, usually displays the RSS feed. (This is a stripped down version of the site.) For example compare these two pages -

NY Times Home page: http://www.nytimes.com/

NY Times RSS Feed: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml

You can add the blog/webpage  URL in your Feed reading software, and the software will subscribe to the feed.

Where do I find a good feed reader?

I use the Google Reader, if you have a Google account, you can start using it here – http://www.google.com/reader/

There are many such online and offline tools. Do a google search and you will find more softwares.

More Questions?

If you have more questions, add them as comments and I will try to answer them.

Theory: A technical writer gives good directions.

Why?

A good technical writer needs a few skills to do the job well and while some of this can be something that one can be born with, one can also have developed it over the years. The skills I am talking about are described below.

Assimilation - The power to understand things quickly. To give good directions, one needs to know their way around. For being good at giving directions in particular, having a good visual memory helps. Making a mental note of things and putting it on a map in your head and marking it with specific landmarks is quite a droolable quality.

Good grasping power helps to understand what you are going to talk about. While this skill is not a rarity, it definitely is either inherent within a person or a person has to consciously develop it. It need not come with a particular type of education.

Simplification – There could be ten ways of reaching point B from point A. But the best way will be different for different people. As the crow flies, he might have a totally different take on the best route. ‘Simplification’ here would mean, avoid the short cuts if they are too confusing and state landmarks that are visible to the eye. Your aim is to get the person to the destination quickly and without him/her losing the way.

One can develop this skill, solving math problems in school. If one gets a hang of simplifying math problems, the skill can be applied almost anywhere else. And definitely in providing good directions or in technical writing.

Translation - ‘Translation’ here would mean actually telling what one assimilates and simplifies. This is not an easy task. One needs to be able to speak the language of the person who is receiving the directions. A good communicator will make the language appear as small a barrier as possible.

One could have grasped these skills while learning languages at school. A good hand at grammar would definitely be invaluable.

A good question to ask —

So if you meet a technical writer and want to hire him/her, ask for directions to a local book store and tell the writer that you don’t speak his/her language. A good tech writer should overcome the challenge.

When I was a dud, which is not very long back (I probably still am), I created a flickr account. Excited by the promise that it is a great way to store, search, and share photos. It is, but did you know that it only allows you to store 200 photos with a free account?

When I crossed that limit, I decided to explore flickr.

Here’s where I heard the word ‘Tags‘ (in the web 2.0 sense) for the first time. Tags are words (or phrases) to identify a photo (in flickr’s case). A photo should usually have multiple tags. It is also necessary to tag photos appropriately as flickr let’s you search photos by tags. The concept is simple (and brilliant) but I took some time to grasp it due the inertia of ignorance.

One of my first tag searches on flickr was for frogs (I love the creature), and I was amazed by the number of beautiful photos I saw. I spent an hour seeing frog photos.

Go ahead see some beautiful photos of your favorite things. You can try searching for your name and see if you get any photos.

There’s more to flickr than just tagging. I hope to continue in another post.