The Story of “a” and “an” July 31, 2008
Posted by Amal in Did You Know, English Usage, english.Tags: english, Grammar, Vowels
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When do you use “an”?
I know, silly question! Even my neighbor the little girl who hates school believes that her teacher already explained vowels. What the teacher failed to explain her is “it’s never about vowels, it’s all about phonetics”.
Let us see it this way – “an hour”, we put an before hour because it sounds like OUR.
So are there some exceptions to put “AN” before words starting with vowels? I bet there are…
A User – (Sounds Yu-zer, Y is not a vowel)
A Eulogy (Sounds Yu-Logy)
A Union (Sounds Yun-Nian)
A University (Sounds Yu-Niversity)
Let me know if you find more of these words, and you thought just Vowels are so important eh!
Tools For The Information Developers July 28, 2008
Posted by Amal in Tools and Softwares.Tags: information development, software, technical writing, tools
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Information development is a job yet an art. The best part of being an information developer is you have the power to utilize your knowledge, experiences with your visualization and logical power.
Analysis of your target user is not just another rule, but an obligation. The best explanation might be purchasing a laptop. Suppose you need to guide three different persons an, IT professional, a businessman and a teenage girl on the same laptop, would you prefer the same style of transferring information to all? Preferable Not!!
I don’t use the same tone and style for blogging and for test case manuals, both are intended for different sets of audiences.
For technical documentation sometimes we need flowchart, sometimes UML designing and sometimes just pure art. Some great software that information developers would love to use:
• Adobe Framemaker [http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/] – Powerful WYSIWYG Editor with XML capabilities
• Adobe Robohelp [http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/] – Help System, Help authoring tool
• Microsoft Word – The best and most popular drafting editor available.
• Techsmith’s SnagIt [http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp] – Screen capturing Software with possible editing capabilities.
• WordWeb [http://www.wordweb.info] – English dictionary and thesaurus software.
• Editplus [http://www.editplus.com] – A pure coder’s favorite text based editor.
• Microsoft Visio – The best tool for Flowchart diagrams, UML designing, Database model diagrams, Block Plans and Layouts, Project Planning.
• Adobe Acrobat [http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatproextended/] – PDF creator. (also check out cutepdf, if the requirement is just publishing pdf files from MS Word)
For an HTML editor some use Frontpage, while maximum designers prefer Dreamweaver. For a bit technically adapted person who has minimum requirements of HTML / XML to broadcast his information, Editplus is still trusted application.
Adobe recently launched Adobe Technical Communication Suite for technical writers and instructional designers. The suite consists of all tools required by an information developer – Adobe Framemaker, Adobe RoboHelp, Adobe Captivate and Adobe Acrobat. The suite is priced at US $ 1599 and every Information Architect’s dream suite.
Check out: http://www.adobe.com/products/technicalcommunicationsuite
Till my next post – deliver information in the best possible way, Take care.
What is right? “Misspelt” or “Misspelled”? July 24, 2008
Posted by Amal in Did You Know, Editing, English Usage, Technical Writing Basics, english.Tags: Common errors, Spelling mistakes, Misspelled words
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To err is human, and even a technical documenter has to brush up the grammar skills at times. So what are the most common mistakes in a technical publication?
• Spellings
• Punctuations
In this post let us discuss about some common spell errors. Tricks of the trade are to know why they are considered errors and why these are bound to get unnoticed.
Since Microsoft Word or any other good document editor comes with integrated spell checker, we’d emphasize on words which are not wrong according to English spell checks but dependant on usage, along with other common spelling mistakes.
1. Usage of Homonyms
These homonyms may occur in our technical documents, we should know the meaning and use the right word where required.
Accept / Except
Advice / Advised
Assent / Ascent
Aught / Ought
Affect / Effect
Cite / Site / Sight
Cash / Cache
Complement / Compliment
Council / Counsel
Its / It’s
Lose / Loose
Personal / Personnel
Principal / Principle
Stationary / Stationery
Than / Then
Their / There / They’re
Whose / Who’s
Your / You’re
2. Words with double consonants
Normally word spell checker will rectify these type of errors automatically.
Recommend
Accommodate
Committee
Different
Matter
Appointment
Address
Aggressive
Suppress
Fulfill
Irregular
And these words don’t have any double consonants though often misspelled:
Pavilion
Apartment
Biased
Omit
Skillful
3. Words that end with –ance and –able
Extravagant
Occurrence
Compatible
Irresistible
Performance
4. Words that end with –ceed and –sede
Proceed
Precede
Exceed
Supersede
5. Silent e
When words end with “e” and are silent for example – “Write” or “Excite” we generally drop the “e” while adding suffix for example “Writing” and “Exciting”. There’s an exception to this rule, when the suffix begins with a consonant, for example “Excitement”
6. “ei” or “ie”
Piece
Receive
Fiend
Leisure
Weird
Either
Seize
7. Confusing Additions on adding a suffix
• Sometimes the last consonant of a prefix gets doubled when a suffix is added (drag / dragged, brag / bragged)
• When the last consonant of prefix is “y”, sometimes it is changed to “i”. (Try becomes tries but remain trying)
Guide To Common Technical Terms July 23, 2008
Posted by Amal in English Usage, Technical Styles, Technical Writing Basics.Tags: Technical Terms, Jargons, Usage
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At times technical communicators are confused when it comes to draft a document. Should you write “email” or should you prefer “e-mail”?
A common phenomenon is searching Google and preferring the keyword with the highest results. Technical architects are however content with Microsoft Word suggestions. But Microsoft Word doesn’t do justice either. For example “click” and “through” are two different words as per Microsoft Word, but “clickthrough” is a common and valid term used to define a series of mouse clicks.
Microsoft comes to help and guide Technical Communicators in this scenario. “Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications” is a handy reference that helps Technical Communicators in knowing exact terms and jargons to use for Technical Documents.
Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Communications
Microsoft Visio – The First Guide July 23, 2008
Posted by Amal in MS Visio.Tags: Flowchart, Microsft Visio, MS Visio, Technical Diagram
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Microsoft Visio is a trusted tool for Technical Drawing. Most non-technical persons or beginners in this field have a misconception about adapting to MS Visio. Practically speaking Visio is the easiest tool one can use for Technical Drawings. Let’s utilize MS Visio 2003 for a simple flowchart.
1. Open MS Visio.
2. Open New under the File menu.
3. Navigate to New –> Flowchart –> Basic Flowchart. This enable you to create a Flowchart within a designated diagram area.
4. You can choose basic terminator, decision box, process box shapes under the Shapes pane.
5. Choose the appropriate shapes, drag and drop on the drawing area to create your first flowchart.
Using MS Visio is fun and easy. Experiment with MS Visio to know better about its capabilities. More tutorials of creating UML diagrams and Database model diagrams using Visio will follow.
