Technical Writing – Six Simple Language Errors to Avoid

If you want to write great technical documentation then it’s important to avoid C语言代写 these simple errors that can destroy your professional image. Users are pretty unforgiving when it comes to manuals so make sure you don’t break the rules of readability. Here are 6 cardinal sins of language use from technical authoring professionals.

Use the Spell Check

There’s simply no excuse for poor spelling in a document produced on a PC. You don’t need expensive software. There are free plug-ins for your web browser that can spell check for you, and there’s open office if you need free word processing software too.

Use the Right Words

You also need to proof read for spelling even after you’ve used the computer’s check function. Why? Because there’s a difference between “stationary” and “stationery”, you may have spelt the word correctly but is it the right word?

Sort out your Grammar

The worst mistakes in language use are grammatical errors. There is nothing more awful than writing from someone who can’t tell the difference between; “you’re” and “your” or between “their”, “they’re” and “there”. Learn the fundamental rules of grammar and get it right, don’t be overly reliant on the grammar function of word processors – it’s not as accurate as the spell check.

Future Tense

You write a user manual in the present tense, not in the future. So; “Press play and the video will start playing.” is wrong. “Press play and the video starts playing.” is correct.

Conditional Tense

This one’s easy to slip into, because when you start creating a manual for a product some of the content may be speculative. So you write the explanation you hear; “When you press pause the video will stop and the company logo may appear.”

This isn’t any use for the finished guide, either the company logo appears or it doesn’t. You need to check your facts and then make your language definitive.

Contractions and Text Speak

However often these slip into everyday language, they are not acceptable in technical documentation (unless of course you are writing a guide to contractions and text speak). They make you feel your guides are more approachable, in reality they make them look unprofessional.

If you want your products to be remembered for the quality of the workmanship, then making sure your technical writing is of the same standard is vital. There’s nothing worse to your customers than documentation that makes them rage with frustration, and nothing worse for your helpdesk than dealing with those customers. Getting the language right is a significant part of achieving that.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply