Technical Writing - How to Format Your Technical Documents Consistently With a Template?

Consistency of a technical documentation is what creates that subliminal sense of trust and confidence in the end-users.

Someone once quipped: "it ain't technical documentation if it ain't boring." This of course is not literally true since I always found technical documents very interesting indeed.

However, this quip reflects the truth that a technical document must be "boringly consistent" in order to be taken seriously. I could also say "religiously consistent" as the phrase goes, but I thought I might inadvertently offend someone and that certainly is not my intention here.

Technical Writing - How to Format Your Technical Documents Consistently With a Template?

Just ask yourself: would you trust an airplane maintenance manual that has missing page numbers, has chapter headings printed in different fonts and sizes, has differently formatted figure captions for consecutively printed figures (like "Figure 2-14" on one page, and "FIGURE 15" on next)?

Consistency all starts with a document TEMPLATE.

It is harder to shift between different page templates if you are using MS Word as your main text editing program, and much easier if you are using Framemaker or InDesign since the last two are built on the "Master Pages" concept. But a page template is what you definitely must have.

When you have a template, you have consistent margins, sidebars, headers and footers, for starters. You have consistent page numbering and column, and page gutter(s) if you have more than one column.

If your text editor allows you to create Master Pages, I'd recommend you to create a document template starting off with the following 5 types of pages (assuming you are writing a book):

1) Front Cover.
2) First Page.
3) Right Page.
4) Left Page.
5) Back Cover.

And it wouldn't hurt at all of you design templates (Master Pages) for the following types of special pages as well:

6) Front Matter.
7) TOC.
8) List of Tables and Figures.
9) Index.

Have a template first before structuring your information. It's a must. "Don't leave home without it," as one credit card commercial used to say.

Technical Writing - How to Format Your Technical Documents Consistently With a Template?
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Writing And Speaking Good English - How to Use Participles Correctly

Let us see how a misplaced participle spoils the spirit of the meaning of a sentence and how thereby it renders bad English.

1) Sitting on the gate, a serpent stung her. Here the participle 'sitting' appears to qualify a serpent whereas it should rightly qualify 'her' and the sentence should be written as ' while she was sitting on the gate, a serpent stung her'.

2) Driven to fury, the tyrant was charged by the mob. Here the correct relation is between 'driven to fury' and 'mob' and therefore 'driven to fury' should be near to 'mob'. The correct sentence therefore would be, ' driven to fury, the mob charged the tyrant'.

Writing And Speaking Good English - How to Use Participles Correctly

3) Entering the temple, an explosive sound was heard. The correct way here would be, when I entered the temple, an explosive sound was heard.

Proper use of 'shall' and 'will' also help in speaking and writing good English. These words mean either determination or simple future tense depending upon the person.

For instance, in the first person 'shall' denotes simple future and 'will' denotes determination. So it is correct to say ' I will go to Texas'. Another example; I will pay you fifty dollars, denotes promise.

In second and third person, however; 'shall denotes determination and will denotes simple future tense. For example, 'you shall obey my orders' means you must obey my orders. It is a command. So while using 'shall' or 'will' care must be taken about the person to which it refers, as otherwise the English become shabby. In Government resolutions, there is always a command. For instance, 'As from 1st April 2011, the following rule shall come into force for road safety.' This means, every pedestrian must obey that rule. It is a command. If, in such cases, 'will' is used instead of 'shall' then it will not have the force of a command and the persons on whom the order is served may not obey it and no legal action for disobedience can be taken against him.

Second example. You shall have a prize next month. Here 'shall' denotes promise, in short, proper care should be taken in the use of ' shall' and 'will' if good English is to be achieved.

Writing And Speaking Good English - How to Use Participles Correctly
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All the speakers and writers, thoroughly acquire mastery over the use of such words by constantly reading standard books on English literature and by using such words in their speeches or writings from time to time. Speaking Good English, is not as difficult as we feel. If you want to Learn how to speak and write perfect English then Click Here.

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Writing the Flashback in Fiction

Flashbacks are tools for the fiction writer to add depth and interest to a story, as they can be a part of any piece of writing in any genre and type. Flashbacks are important for the drama in the story, because they bring the reader into the life of the characters on an emotional level and let him enter the characters' thoughts, feelings, and expectations.

The main obligation of the flashback is to take the readers back in time when that time or place in the past matters greatly to the storyline and to the present and the future of the characters. By the same token, the flashback has to aid the reader's grasp of the story. The reader's grasp usually matches the writer's understanding of his characters and their situations. If a writer has not fully fleshed out his characters in his mind, the flashbacks may run the risk of being irrelevant to the story.

Let's say, in a very short story, a character named Mike eats a quart of ice-cream in one sitting and remembers, in flashback, his mother serving him ice-cream. Then Mike goes to his job with the CIA and discovers his best friend is a mole. After a few incidents, he proves who the mole is to his bosses. Here, the ice-cream incident and the flashback that come with it have nothing to do with the discovery of the mole, so it shouldn't be included in Mike's discovery-of-the-mole story, even if the writer may imagine it helps to bring out the soft side of this character.

Writing the Flashback in Fiction

One way to bring flashbacks to a story is to give them in total in the beginning as a prologue, an introduction, or an introductory chapter. The advantages of the total flashbacks are:

o Total flashbacks allow the telling of the story without stopping the action.
o They give the story a chronological order.
o During the storytelling, the critical backstory data serves to give depth to the story.
o Writing the total flashback is easy on the writer. After he is done with the backstory in flashback, telling the real story becomes uncomplicated.

The disadvantage of the total flashback in the beginning of a story is that it can bore the reader with the long past, instead of pulling him into the story's action and the story's present time.

Another way to insert flashbacks in a story is to give them in several large chunks inside the story. The film industry can use cut-aways for this; however, in writing straight fiction, large chunks work better only in slow-moving stories. If the writer is telling a fast-paced story in any genre, he needs to avoid the large chunks of flashbacks.

In addition, this type of flashback is best used by signaling its beginning and end in some way or possibly putting the flashback in italics. As to the dialogue in a large chunk of flashback, it can be summarized, if possible.

A third way of inserting the flashbacks in the story is to insert small pieces of flashback, possibly in one or two sentences wherever they are needed. The advantages of this technique are:

o The writer has flexibility in telling the story, as to how to tell it and how much he will let the reader know.
o The writer can weave in critical information and background material at any time he wishes.
o He can use it to increase suspense or to attract the reader's curiosity
o He can create layered characters during the writing of the real story.

On the negative side, if not handled well by the writer, this technique may cause the reader to confuse the past with the present.

A few points to pay attention to while creating flashbacks are:

o The contents of the flashback should not be more exciting than the real story.
o A flashback works better if it follows a strong scene.
o The writer should orient the reader at the start of the flashback in time and space. If the transition of the flashback is not adequately written, past and present may become a jumble in the reader's mind.
o During the revision process, it may be necessary to leave out the least important incidents in the flashbacks and trim down the existing ones.
o As to usage, the writer may want to make use of the verb tenses to signal a flashback's beginning and ending. If the story is told in the present tense, the entire flashback can be in the past tense. If the story is told in past tense, the flashback may begin with past perfect to signal the change, then the flashback may continue with the past tense again, in order not to overuse the weighty past perfect. Then the ending of the flashback can be maneuvered into past perfect again before continuing the story with the past tense.

Some caveats concerning flashbacks are:

o The writer should not make the contents of the flashback more interesting or longer than the real story.
o The writer should not introduce the flashback as the first real scene in the story. This doesn't always work.
o Flashbacks within flashbacks run the risk of confusing the story and the reader who is reading it, unless the writer is as highly experienced as John Updike.
o Too many and too long flashbacks tend to turn a story into an epic. If that is not the intention and there is a limit to word count, the writer must be careful with long flashbacks.
o It works better to use flashbacks sparingly and with discretion since they do tend to slow the pacing. An experienced writer will not use flashbacks past the three-quarters of the real story.

Writing the Flashback in Fiction
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Joy Cagil is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/
which is a site for Writers

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How To Increase Writing Productivity Through Dragon Naturally Speaking

Writing blogs, website content, articles and other written content can be tiring and stressful, especially if you are not a rapid typist. Thankfully, you can use voice recognition software like Dragon Naturally Speaking to speed up productivity simply by speaking instead of typing. With the use of this software, you can write articles, blog posts, website content, social network updates and more 2-5 times faster than typing. With proper training and use, you can make use of the software with up to 99% accuracy.

All About Dragon

Dragon was designed to provide an easier way for people to create textual content by using voice. The software recognizes speech patterns and transcribes them into written format. This is very useful for people who cannot type as fast as rapid writers do. It also proves useful to people who cannot type using the keyboard due to certain physical inhibitions.

How To Increase Writing Productivity Through Dragon Naturally Speaking

Keep in mind that even the fingers of the fastest of typists do get tired after hours of work. For slow typists, they may not get tired easily, but they cannot produce as much written content as rapid typists do. This is where the software becomes very useful. With the use of Dragon Naturally Speaking, you can increase the number of articles, blog posts, or web content you can create in a shorter period of time. Even if your fingers are sore or your arms are aching, you can still be productive with writing by using your voice to create text on your computer.

The Benefits of Using Speech Recognition Software

Speech recognition software allows you to create text content as fast as you can speak. Dragon is amazingly fast in transcribing speech into text and does not commit any spelling errors. It has the capacity to produce text with up to 99% accuracy as long as you train the software properly. It can also speed up your writing capacity by allowing you to create text 2-5 times the speed of typing. Of course, the rate depends on how many words you can type in a given period of time.

Important Things To Consider

It is important to train the software so that it can recognize certain speech patterns in your voice to allow it to improve performance over time. In some cases, this can take a while so be patient if it is your first time to use the product. Amazingly, the software learns quickly.

It is equally important to train yourself to speak clearly and moderately. With practice, you can speed up your productivity through the use of the software. Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking can provide 99% accuracy as long as you train it properly, speak properly, and customize it according to your own preference.

How To Increase Writing Productivity Through Dragon Naturally Speaking
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Learn more about Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking by clicking the link. The dictation software is designed for Windows-based applications, but you can use Dragon Dictate for Mac if you are using an Apple computer.

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Script Writing: How to Write a Good Script

As a writer, your dream on making it big in the entertainment industry is selling a script and making a movie out of it.

Movies are one of the best forms of entertainment in the world. Since the invention and advancement in movie technology, people were always fascinated on how a movie works.

One of the most important necessities to make a good movie is not the graphic effects you see. You have to know that there have been movies done without much special effects and still won awards and really entertained people.

Script Writing: How to Write a Good Script

You have to consider that fact that actors, directors, and even producers have been successful because of one thing. They have been successful because they had a good script to follow.

A script can mean the difference of making a complete movie disaster and also making it big and win awards. If you want to be a script writer, you have to make a movie script that will catch the attention of movie goers. It should be able to entertain the audience and should contain all the necessary things in a movie.

Script writing is not something that only a select few can do, it is something that a regular person with enough imagination can learn, apply and develop. There is even script writing schools available that can help you enhance your script writing skills.

The ever growing demand for movies has made a market for good scripts. If you like to write, you may want to consider writing a script. Script writing can truly be a very rewarding job. If you do it right, you can be sure that you can really make your dreams come true by just writing a script for a movie. If you are successful, you can be sure that you will be in constant demand by the movie industry.

All you need is to have a great sense of imagination, a computer, and a printer.

The first thing you need to do as a scriptwriter is that you should catch the audience's imagination early. Write a script that will play around with the audience's imagination. Once you have their attention, it will be much easier to continue with the script. Always make your audience wonder what's going to happen next.

A good script should get the audience involved as the story unfolds. For example, great heroes in the movies should inspire your audience, and villains should make the audience feel the need to jump onto the screen.

These are some of the things you should always remember when writing a script. At times, you may get stuck. This can be frustrating but getting stuck will mean that you made a mistake somewhere in the script. Review your script, edit it, and move on.

So, if you have a sense of imagination, you can write a perfect script. Who knows, maybe you can make it big in the movie industry. Maybe someday, you might even win an award for writing a great script for a movie.

Always remember that writing a script can also mean hard work. With patience, you will really see that all those hard work will pay off.

Whether you are writing a script for drama, action, comedy, or a thriller movie, you should always remember that the key to writing a good script is by capturing the audience's imagination.

Script Writing: How to Write a Good Script
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The Difference Between Formal and Informal Writing

When it comes to writing in English, there are two main styles of writing - formal and informal. Consider these two examples:

Example 1:

This is to inform you that your book has been rejected by our publishing company as it was not up to the required standard. In case you would like us to reconsider it, we would suggest that you go over it and make some necessary changes.

The Difference Between Formal and Informal Writing

Example 2:
You know that book I wrote? Well, the publishing company rejected it. They thought it was awful. But hey, I did the best I could, and I think it was great. I'm not gonna redo it the way they said I should.

The difference between the two is obvious. The first one is formal, and the second is informal. But what is it that makes them formal and informal?

It is the style of writing, or the way we use words to say what we want to say. Different situations call for different ways of putting words together. The way we write in academic and scientific settings differs greatly from the way we write to a friend or close one. The tone, vocabulary, and syntax, all change as the occasion changes. This difference in the styles of writing is the difference between formality and informality, or the difference between formal and informal writing.

Following is a list of some of the main differences between informal and formal writing:

Informal: May use colloquial words/expressions (kids, guy, awesome, a lot, etc.)

Formal: Avoid using colloquial words/expressions (substitute with children, man/boy, wonderful, many, etc.)

Informal: May use contractions (can't, won't, shouldn't, etc.).

Formal: Avoid contractions (write out full words - cannot, will not, should not, etc.).

Informal: May use first, second, or third person.

Formal: Write in third person (except in business letters where first person may be used).

Informal: May use clichés (loads of, conspicuous by absence, etc.)

Formal: Avoid clichés (use many, was absent, etc.)

Informal: May address readers using second person pronouns (you, your, etc)

Formal: Avoid addressing readers using second person pronouns (use one, one's, the reader, the reader's, etc.)

Informal: May use abbreviated words (photo, TV, etc)

Formal: Avoid using abbreviated words (use full versions - like photograph, television, etc.)

Informal: May use imperative voice (e.g. Remember....)

Formal: Avoid imperative voice (use Please refer to.....)

Informal: May use active voice (e.g. We have notice that.....)

Formal: Use passive voice (e.g. It has been noticed that....)

Informal: May use short and simple sentences.

Formal: Longer and more complex sentences are preferred (short simple sentences reflects poorly on the writer)

Informal: Difficulty of subject may be acknowledged and empathy shown to the reader.

Formal: State your points confidently and offer your argument firm support.

These are just some of the differences between formal and informal writing. The main thing to remember is that both are correct, it is just a matter of tone and setting. Formal English is used mainly in academic writing and business communications, whereas Informal English is casual and is appropriate when communicating with friends and other close ones. Choose the style of writing keeping in mind what you are writing and to whom. But whichever style you write in - formal or informal - be sure to keep it consistent, do not mix the two.

The Difference Between Formal and Informal Writing
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Anis Siddiqi is an accomplished writer and has several published works to her credit. She is a regular writer for http://www.word-mart.com

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Writing and Speaking in a Distinctive Voice

Speaking in a distinctive voice has little to do with using big or complex words (though I must admit I'm often amazed by how otherwise educated people have developed such a limited a vocabulary).

A distinctive voice is more simplicity than flamboyance. The simpler the words and sentence construction the more transfixed recipients are likely to be.

Simplicity is always more powerful than complexity. Profound truths come in simple phrasings that cut to the bare bones of the thought or situation. Complexity is over-packaged language that leaves us feeling off balance and wondering if our interpretation is pure and accurate.

Writing and Speaking in a Distinctive Voice

But let's get back to basics. I said last week that our voices lack distinction because we all walk around parroting one another, all using the same old clichés, making our voices indistinguishable from the vast choir of people saying the exact same things. So we blend in rather than stand out.

That can change by ridding our language of all those echoes. Here are some examples of common clichés, followed by the same information expressed in a distinctive way.

Cliché: Think outside the box. (Irony: Using clichés isn't thinking outside the box.)
Revision: Come up with original ideas.

It's a no brainer.
It couldn't be any more obvious if you handed it to me on the end of a skewer.

This isn't rocket science. (Irony: Rocket science isn't actually all that complicated.)
This isn't particle physics.

This is a win-win situation.
Both sides benefit from this deal.

We need to focus on core competencies.
We need to stick with what we do best.

The proposal is cost prohibitive.
The proposal is too expensive.

We need to hit the ground running.
We need to move fast.

I don't have the bandwidth.
I don't have time.

The 800-pound gorilla.
The big problem.

Improve ROI (return on investment).
Improve our financial performance.

Our mission is to assist the economically disadvantaged.
Our mission is to help the poor.

Which of these two managers do you think the CEO will consider direct and clear thinking?

Manager one: "The current spending plan is unsustainable."
Manager two: "We're going to run out of money."

The first manager sugar coats and minimizes the situation. The second gives the chief executive the bleak and direct truth about the company's situation. Who do you think the CEO is more likely to respect, remember and promote?

Let's take a real-life historic situation. In 1986 the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during takeoff killing all astronauts aboard. At the White House two senior staffers - Chief of Staff Donald Regan and Communications Director Patrick Buchanan - walked into the Oval Office to notify President Reagan.

Regan spoke first saying, "Mr. President, there's been a tragedy."

Buchanan, a no-nonsense straight talker, immediately added, "Sir, the Space Shuttle blew up."

Reagan leapt to his feet after hearing Buchanan speak.

What Donald Regan said wasn't a cliché or common phrase but it was too general to make an impact commensurate with the situation.

It was Buchanan who evoked the appropriate emotional response from the President by telling him what happened in simple, specific, brief language.

Donald Regan blew smoke. Patrick Buchanan lit a fire. No surprise that Buchanan, not Regan, was the White House communications director.

Simply rewording clichés and speaking more directly is just a first-level effort in the campaign to develop a voice distinctive enough to turn you into an oak among willows. We haven't even touched on tone, color, metaphors, similes, storytelling, and so on.

Still, this first-level effort alone can make you a remarkably refreshing speaker and writer, one who sounds more like the office soloist than a choir boy or girl.

Writing and Speaking in a Distinctive Voice
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Mike Consol is president of www.mikeconsol.com. He provides corporate training seminars for communication skills, business writing, PowerPoint presentation skills and media training (both traditional media and social media). Consol spent 17 years with American City Business Journals, the nation's largest publisher of metropolitan business journals with 40 weekly newspapers across the United States.

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