technical author?
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Why
do you need a
technical author? |
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does a technical author do?
The work of a technical author The most important person: the reader What should you look for in a technical author? When should you call in the technical author? Why do you need a technical author? What does a technical author need? What if you can't afford a technical author? |
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A technical
author uses many skills, in finding, collecting, assessing, selecting and
organising information, and finally communicating it to the reader in a
clear and concise form to meet the reader's needs.
Some of this is science, some is art. Some is learned by study, some by practice. Like any other work, this is done with best results if an expert is called in to do it. The technical author achieves the result by co-operating with those who have the specialist knowledge in the technology. In producing a readable and understandable document, one of the most important things is being concise, but not too brief. A technical author can express the information in the right number of words. A good technical author can often rewrite a document by a technical, sales or marketing person to reduce the size of the document (in words) by around one quarter or one third. This is without changing the meaning, but making the meaning much clearer. (The actual size of a paper document will not necessarily decrease by as much, because the technical author will use white space better to improve readability.) |
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This
is version 2, November 2002.
Copyright © 1999-2002 Richard
Burnham and
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