Sometimes, we are asked by German clients to improve the English text in their product information sheets. Although their staff speak and write excellent English, they recognise their marketing copy can appear a little stilted, “wordy” and unclear. The sentences may be grammatically correct, but no native-English speaker would ever write them in that way…. Read more »
Category: writing
Writing as a career in IT
Here are the slides from our presentation to Year 10 children at The Matthew Arnold School in Staines-upon-Thames on writing as a career in IT. We looked at the different writing postions in companies, such as Apple, and then looked at the role of the Technical Author/Writer. The class had to write an instruction manual… Read more »
Is re-using content a good or a bad thing to do?
Today’s BBC News Web site has a piece on Ofsted re-using sentences in more than one school inspection report: An investigation has begun into claims that Ofsted approved “cut and paste” inspection reports using identical sentences and phrases…both reports say: “Some teachers do not plan learning for pupils at their different levels of ability and… Read more »
Improving policy and procedures documents
I’ve been trying to work out why we’ve seen a marked increase in the number of enquiries relating to improving policy and procedures documents. Typically, these documents relate to very important issues. For example: dealing with vulnerable people calling an emergency hotline, and ensuring patient records are always handled confidentially and securely. Reading these documents, it… Read more »
What makes a good writing test for a Technical Author?
We’re currently working on developing some new tests to assist clients who need to assess the writing skills of candidate Technical Authors. Writing test papers is a challenging task – it goes against the grain to make mistakes deliberately! English is a language where sentences can be written in many different ways. Today, many people… Read more »