Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

The 5 Benefits of a Content Audit

October 31, 2024March 31, 2025Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

If we’re honest with ourselves, we should be auditing our organization’s content more often than we do. A content audit, which is a survey and analysis of existing content, should encompass content that is online and printed, long and short, text, audio, video, and graphics. Or encompass at least the part of that whole that aligns with your organization’s current challenge.

If you’re having difficulty selling the need to conduct a content audit, this blog post is for you. If your organization has never conducted a content audit but you suspect it should let me help you understand what a content audit might reveal.

The Secret to Consistent Voice, Tone, and Style

September 30, 2024January 16, 2026Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

Not long ago, I was asked what exactly I do. It’s not really a secret. I help organizations improve their existing content while making room for newly developed content—all while helping to ensure the final, overall experience for the target audience(s) is consistent. But the conversation got stuck on the word “consistent.”

Why is consistency important? How does one achieve it? Especially in technical content?

A consistent voice, tone, and style across documents and online content can be the difference between a cohesive user experience and a confusing jumble of instructions. We’ve all experienced it, right? That user manual or technical guide that feels like a dozen different people wrote it on a dozen different days. The information might be accurate, but the experience of reading it? Well, that’s another story.

So, let’s explore the real story of consistency in voice, tone, and style in technical communication, the pitfalls of inconsistency, and how to establish guidelines that ensure your content speaks with a single voice to the reader, no matter how it is generated or how many writers are involved.

Of Fallacies, Biases, and Justices: The Terms of Our Time

September 13, 2024October 16, 2025Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

It’s political season again in the U.S., and to make an understatement, it’s been a doozy. Speaking of statements (political or otherwise), I think now is a good time to reconsider the logical fallacies we all learned to avoid during our entry-level English composition classes.

No, I will not lecture you like your high-school English teacher would. (And yes, I was one once.) But I would like to lecture Justice Alito. Not only about fallacies but also about biases. More on that later.

Mistakes and Shortcuts

In case you don’t remember, logical fallacies are arguments that make a mistake in logic or fail to “satisfy the criteria of a cogent argument” (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Mistakes in deductive logic, the “form” of logic praised by Aristotle, are formal fallacies. Failures to make or prove a reasonable argument, whether through deductive or inductive reasoning, are informal fallacies. That might be a distinction without a difference, but historians care. (Please remember I was an English major for a reason.)

A Most Sophisticated Error in Technical Writing

July 31, 2024November 20, 2024Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

While writing plainly with clear terminology is always the goal in technical communication, sometimes we must create a complex sentence (like this one!) to convey our meaning. Or we find that we must include a noun clause (like this one!) or even (shudder!) a modifying phrase or clause.

First, the good news. Complex sentence patterns reveal intelligence and a tendency to write in a sophisticated way. Most experienced technical writers fall into this category.

The bad news is that these sentence patterns are easy to screw up. Let me explain why and provide some tips on how to avoid clouding the meaning of your sentences.

A Call for Plain Language in Medicine: My Story

June 30, 2024October 31, 2024Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

Lack of plain language can lead an audience down the wrong path. That’s at best. At worst, it can endanger the audience. Somewhere in between, a lack of clear, plainly stated communication can cost both the conveyer and the receiver time and money.

My recent breast cancer scare shows how poor communication from otherwise compassionate, dedicated professionals can have negative effects. Their lack of clarity strained my family’s resources and relationships. The circumstances under which I received that information left me traumatized.

No, I don’t have breast cancer—as far as I can determine.

But for an excruciatingly long time, I haven’t known for sure. Here’s what happened, what I learned, and what could have helped.

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Mistakes and Shortcuts

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