Posted in: technical writing

popupCommon Grammatical Errors in Technical Writing It might be tempting to see technical writing as data entry. After all, it's just meant to give the reader information, right? Though technical topics may be a bit dry and your technical writing isn't going to become the next great American novel or win a Pulitzer, a little attention to the mechanics of writing can still draw a strong distinction between bad...
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Writer Anne Lamott once said of her writing friends: "Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much." The truth is, all of us can benefit from giving our writing a second (or third, or fourth) pass. But where do you start when you might not even know the difference between editing and proofreading? And what about revisions? Here's a quick...
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With not too much effort, you can find a template to tell you how to do almost anything: write a business letter, construct a thesis, churn out a pulp novel. This is one kind of scaffolding that you can use for greater or lesser effect in the art of writing, but there's an even more important one that kicks in before you even start your outline, and that's the metastructure of critical thinking. Critical thinking...
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We often hear from our clients that staffers often struggle with their writing because they don't know the "basics." But the reality is that it's probably not the basics they don't understand; rather, it's that the organization hasn't standardized its writing process or provided staff with a clear roadmap in terms of the organization expects from its documents and how its writers are supposed...
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People usually don’t expect to do things perfectly the first time. That’s why we invest in lessons for everything from violin to dance to cake decorating to golf. And we know we have to practice, whether that means going to the batting cage three times a week or rehearsing a sales presentation over and over. Writing is no different. It is a skill that can be mastered with practice. If you struggle...
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