Paula Stern, Author at WritePoint

When the Technical Writer Fails…

It happens. Sometimes technical writers don't do the job they are supposed to do. Failure can come from many different directions. Sometimes it is because a technical writer doesn't have the right background. There is a whole debate, for example, about how technical a technical writer has to be. From my experience, the main limitation is not really the technical writer's background so much as the technical writer's ability to gather information and translate it to the user's…

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September 4, 2012

Is Editing a Document Enough?

I can't tell you how many times a company has come to me and said they have an editing job for us. The content is there, they explain, it's just a matter of editing it. Last week, a client came with this exact comment. Now, there are times when the client genuinely means this. Editing IS enough. Perhaps it is an internal document - one that will be passed around within the company. The expected audience knows the…

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August 29, 2012

Help Authoring

Writing for Help Tips

This is part of the Help Authoring Tips series. The difference between a good help file and an ineffective one is not really how it looks, but ultimately, what is written there. Sure, the help should look good. This increases usability and makes a positive statement towards your company's branding. But the contents of the help often determines the user's ability to successfully use the application. Following are some tips for writing right - correctly writing the help so that…

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August 21, 2012

Help Authoring / Technical Writing / Tools / Writing

Today’s Technical Writer

Today's technical writer needs to be so much more than he or she once was. When I first started on the path to becoming a technical writer 19 years ago, the tools were more basic and infinitely more limited. WinHelp was about as cutting edge as there was. The first company to hire me, Scitex, was a huge Israeli hi-tech company that broke tasks into tiny pieces and hired people to do them. My skills included: the fundamentals…

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August 14, 2012