Manjula Kandula
Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep was born on 5 July 1996. It was an epoch-making milestone in science and opened the door to understanding creation. Noted science journalist Gina Kolata broke the news nationally in The New York Times and was the first reporter to speak with D[...]
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Archive for the ‘WriteRight’ Category
Decoding Science Writing
September, 2011 § in WriteRight
Communicating by Behavioral Styles
- Meghashri Dalvi
A lot has already been said about SMEs and their critical role in delivering user assistance on time and accurately. Most of the technical communicators will tell you that quite often their outlook and that of the SMEs differ vastly,and almost always their priorities seem to be [...]
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September, 2011 § in WriteManager, WriteRight
Developing documentation for agile
- Manjusha Nair
In earlier articles in this series, we have planned for our agile project, and we have gathered the requirements. Are you still wondering how we can actually write for agile? If you wonder how we can develop documentation that is release quality and free of errors, in just a couple [...]
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September, 2011 § in WriteRight
An Editor’s Corner
- Devarati Banerjee
A sip of wine, a filling lunch, and a smoke-filled rendezvous over editing and publishing a book, has now long become a part of book publishing’s glitzy past. In those days, when technical writing was just changing the face of the IT industry, editing was still ruling the book[...]
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September, 2011 § in WriteRight
Decision Making Process
- Harry Anthony
A Manager or an individual needs to be effective with making decisions ranging from large to small on a daily basis. Managers/individuals must be problem-solvers and who can make decisions instantly.
It is critical to first prioritize problems based on issues that effect on the orga[...]
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July, 2011 § in WriteManager, WriteRight
Requirements Gathering for Agile
By Manjusha Nair
As technical writers, we rely heavily on design documents and prototypes to get an understanding of the product/software; the absence of this basic arsenal can stump the best of writers. But there are alternatives…
We discussed in the last article how agile does not follow any p[...]
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December, 2010 § in TechTools, WriteRight
RCO, Estimation, & Ratio Analysis Technical Documentation, Part 3
– Makarand Pandit
This is the final essay of a three-part series. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.
In the previous article we talked about Ratio Analysis. We looked at
Frederick Ratio or Height Ratio
Sunil Ratio or Width Ratio
Mak Ratio or Distribution Ratio
In this part we will look at two t[...]
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October, 2010 § in WriteRight
Authoring Accessible Documentation
- Mugdha Vairagade
The software application you document is accessibility-compliant, but not the documentation you author? Then read on.
According to Wikipedia, accessibility is a term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is accessible by as many people [...]
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October, 2010 § in WriteRight
Instructional writing is an art
- Kumar Dhanagopal
Instructional writing is at a point today where most of us agree that adhering to certain writing styles can almost certainly make instructions more effective. Increasingly, organizations view the task of writing instructions as a rule-based activity that any person who can write[...]
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October, 2010 § in WriteRight
RCO, Estimation, & Ratio Analysis Technical Documentation, Part 2
– Makarand Pandit
This is the second essay of a three-part series. Read part 1 here.
In the previous article we talked about preparing the Rich Content Outline. In this article we are going to talk about the Ratio Analysis.
Ratio Analysis
The concept of ration analysis is popular in account[...]
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October, 2010 § in WriteRight
7 Ways to Avoid Misunderstandings When Writing for an International Audience
– Ugur Akinci, Ph.D.
Technical communicators are increasingly catering to an international audience due to the expansion of the global market place. Such a development requires a new vigilance when writing technical documents in order to minimize inadvertent cross-cultural misunderstandings[...]
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August, 2010 § in WriteRight
RCO, Estimation, & Ratio Analysis Technical Documentation, Part 1
– Makarand Pandit
This is the first essay of a three-part series.
There are three essential attributes of a communication product. These are Content, Structure, and Presentation. In a well-developed communication product equal importance has to be given to all of them.
The presentation capt[...]
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August, 2010 § in WriteRight
The Myth of the Holy Cow
– Anindita Basu
In my life as a technical writer, I have been handed out quite a few myths. Some of these myths came disguised as commandments resounding with a Thou Shalt Not. The intention, I suspect, is to lull me to passive obedience. In this article, I will mention some of these m[...]
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April, 2010 § in WriteRight
Document Review
– Sharada Palagummi
This article is meant for writers who are just trying to find their feet in the technical writing field. I will take a couple of excerpts from some user documentation, and will discuss them. Some points might be not acceptable and many might be missing. My purpose is [...]
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February, 2010 § in WriteRight
Knowledge Transfer
A coffee table write-up for a Subject Matter Expert
- Deepa Gopalakrishnan
I am trying to finish that last section in my document. After the eighth revision of a segment of text over the past releases, someone in the team thought that the following piece of input would help me seal the document fo[...]
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February, 2010 § in WriteRight
What If
- Anindita Basu
What if my Help was not at all like the Help as we usually see it?
What if every menu option had a tiny Help next to it? So every time I hover my mouse over it, it tells me stuff like “If you click Open, your currently open catalog is automatically closed and [...][...]
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December, 2009 § in WriteRight
Conversation with INDUS
- Samartha Vashishtha discusses the balance between technical and creative writing
When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a lot of things at different points in time. As a kid, growing up on Russian books on cosmonautics, I wanted to be an astronaut. I am sur[...]
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December, 2009 § in WriteRight
Human Personality and Localized Content – The Big Five Personality Model
- Subhajit Sengupta
Human personality is the sum total of the ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others. We all inherit a certain type of personality that helps us build our unique adjustment to the environment. The measurable traits that we exhibit through the interaction are[...]
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November, 2009 § in WriteRight
Reuse Debugged
-Vandana Rao
The term reuse has several different connotations. In its most primitive form, reuse involves copying and pasting text. However, reuse is much more than just copying and pasting text. Reuse is essential in defining a unified content strategy; it can also help improve documentation pro[...]
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November, 2009 § in WriteRight
Adopting Documentation Usability Techniques to Alleviate Cognitive Friction
- Debarshi Gupta Biswas and Suranjana Dasgupta
The Digital Divide and Technical Communicators
In his famous book, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity, Alan Cooper, one of the greatest advocates of Interaction Design, introduced t[...]
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