Making the most of reviews and critiques

If there's one thing new technical writers can struggle with, it's accepting critical feedback from reviewers. When you've labored over a piece of writing, done your best to provide accurate information, kept your end-user in mind, and thought about the document design, it can be difficult to hear that you've made mistakes or the customer wants something different. One of my first assignments as a technical writer was to create a setup poster for a printer. Having a particular love of symm...
More

Proofreading tips for lone writers

Once or twice in my career as a technical writer I've been lucky enough to work with an editor. But often we technical writers work alone and have to proofread our own writing. My grandfather was a newspaper editor, so I learned at a young age, that spelling mistakes and grammatical errors were unacceptable. I guess that's why I have a highly-tuned radar for typos. But I admit I miss things too. Here are a few tricks to help you avoid the embarrassment of poor proofreading: 1. Read the docum...
More

Keeping the writing fresh

Working as a technical writer, it's easy to focus on the tools we use. Learning new tools and implementing new processes is fun and exciting. But often we have to update the same manuals, write the same documents, produce content using the same branding and styles over and over. And our writing can become dull and lifeless. I was thinking about this the other day when I was out for dinner. I was eating a salad, picking around some particularly limp lettuce. I wanted to toss this salad in t...
More