Comments on: Re: Writing Great Technical Documentation http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/11/13/re-writing-great-technical-documentation/ Natural language processing blog. Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:54:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: rsmudge http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/11/13/re-writing-great-technical-documentation/#comment-447 rsmudge Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:44:33 +0000 http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/?p=254#comment-447 Hi Jacob, I credit you for writing a great series and getting people talking about this topic. I used to work as a scientist and part of my job was writing technical reports. We were instructed to use clean and concise style so I knew about avoiding passive voice, hidden verbs, and fluff phrases. I discovered Plain English later and felt happy to see a label I could assign to the concept of "write simply, so your reader can understand". It's good stuff. I look forward to seeing your post on technology. If you want a pointer to some tools to look at, let me know. There is a lot of product innovation happening in this area because processor power is cheap now and data is readily available. Unfortunately a lot of these innovative products are proprietary but it's still neat what's happening. -- Raphael Hi Jacob,
I credit you for writing a great series and getting people talking about this topic. I used to work as a scientist and part of my job was writing technical reports. We were instructed to use clean and concise style so I knew about avoiding passive voice, hidden verbs, and fluff phrases.

I discovered Plain English later and felt happy to see a label I could assign to the concept of “write simply, so your reader can understand”. It’s good stuff.

I look forward to seeing your post on technology. If you want a pointer to some tools to look at, let me know. There is a lot of product innovation happening in this area because processor power is cheap now and data is readily available. Unfortunately a lot of these innovative products are proprietary but it’s still neat what’s happening.

– Raphael

]]> By: Jacob Kaplan-Moss http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/11/13/re-writing-great-technical-documentation/#comment-446 Jacob Kaplan-Moss Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:24:52 +0000 http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/?p=254#comment-446 Thanks for the feedback, Raphael. I'd not seen "plain english" before; that's a neat resource. For the record, it's not that I've "omitted" proofing software: so far I've deliberately avoided talking about software. It's easy to look for technological solutions to our problems, but no level of software can compensate for not knowing how to write. After all, if you don't have a grounding in style, how do you know when you've got "too much" passive voice, and when it's "no big deal"? I *will* be dealing with tech in a later post (or maybe a couple; I'm not quite sure); After the Deadline's certainly on my list :) Thanks for the feedback, Raphael. I’d not seen “plain english” before; that’s a neat resource.

For the record, it’s not that I’ve “omitted” proofing software: so far I’ve deliberately avoided talking about software. It’s easy to look for technological solutions to our problems, but no level of software can compensate for not knowing how to write. After all, if you don’t have a grounding in style, how do you know when you’ve got “too much” passive voice, and when it’s “no big deal”?

I *will* be dealing with tech in a later post (or maybe a couple; I’m not quite sure); After the Deadline’s certainly on my list :)

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