Posts Tagged ‘Technical Editing’

  © Ugur Akinci You can eliminate a lot of deadwood from your technical writing by eliminating the passive voice and secondary verbs. Here is an example: ORIGINAL: “A decision was made at the Project Management level that the product should be released by the first of the new year.” “A decision was made” is…

Here is an example of how NOT to use  a title when writing procedural steps: [TITLE] Follow these instructions: Calculate the exact amount of patent fee you need to pay to the United States Patent and Trademark Office by using the PF calculator. Itemize the fees for each individual application by using Form I. Convert…

There are ways to direct the attention of the reader to the subject or object of a title (or subtitle). ———————- QUICK RECAP: In the following sentence, “Shaun loves fish” “Shaun” is the SUBJECT and “fish” is the OBJECT. ———————- You can highlight a title’s subject or object by using active or passive voice appropriately. Here is how: METHOD…

A title should identify the object of the text. A title should be a brief, but informative, description of the text that follows. In order to establish a connection between the title and what is being discussed in the text, it is important to provide some basic information about what is going on in the…

Titles are sometimes also called “headings”, “headlines” or even “headers” (mostly by technical writers coming from a journalism background). Subtitles are sometimes also referred to as “subheadings” or “subheaders.” But a title is used only once in an article or a document: in the very beginning. That’s why an article, a book, or a document…