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.
I hate to admit that I still have stumbling blocks after decades of writing experience, but, ummm, I do. It’s writing headings. There! I wrote it down—in a public blog post.
If you have the same struggle, I can share some advice and tips with you. No need to go heading-less!
Headings are important because they serve as guideposts to our written content. When effective, they help our readers locate and conceptualize the information they seek from our organizations. (Remember when I wrote about scannability?) Effective headings are especially important in online content, where they continue to feed web search engines, even Google’s.
Note that Google Search’s March 2024 core update attempts to assess a piece of content’s quality so that our search results contain fewer meaningless clickbait. This puts more pressure on content creators to develop original, helpful online content – including meaningful first- and second-level headings.
Those are strong motivators, right? So why is writing a good heading sooo hard?
In last month’s blog, I summarized some introductory concepts and tools for writing about hardware-related REST APIs, a journey I started myself a little over a year ago. To be honest, though, I didn’t make that journey alone. I have been the content strategist for a group of writers, who came at the challenge from various backgrounds. Read more →
Follow up! (which is an outcome, really, of the first three)
As the rule list suggests, the fourth rule is really a result of conscientious use of the first three rules. Follow-up consists of – Ahem! <embarrassed throat-clearing> – not dropping the ball once it is in flight and also using good networking skills. Both stem from the well-known variation on the golden rule – you know, the one that says it’s best to try to walk a mile in someone else’s Converse high-tops before you pass judgment.
Dropped-ball avoidance (just developing the sports metaphor here, so please don’t judge!) is a simple guideline to implement. It means that if you started the email string to begin with, you are responsible for closing it out. Typically, you can do that with a summary/next steps email back to all respondents on the string. Summarize the ideas they shared, thank them for sharing, and indicate what you and/or your team will do with those ideas (your next steps).
You can even follow up on the follow-up and go back to the email string after several weeks to inform everyone what steps/ideas you and/or your team have implemented.
You can also take follow-up in a different direction and examine the responses in the email string as jumping-off points for networking opportunities. (And yes, even those of you who are securely employed need to take advantage of networking opportunities.) Was someone included on the email string whom you have never encountered? Was someone on the email string especially critical of your team or their effort? Or did someone on the email string seem to struggle with understanding the topic?
All of these situations represent opportunities for you to reach out informally to the responder and talk – over coffee, over lunch, over Skype, whatever. Get some face time with him/her. Most of the time, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much you have in common with that person, and you might even find opportunities in which the two of you can collaborate. In fact, you might just find your next big opportunity professionally through that conversation. Or maybe just your next pick-up ball game. Either way, you’ve pushed beyond the keyboard and made a real connection. Good for you!
For those of you in the U.S., please have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday!
Interrupting the flow of my email rules to bring you my five favorite Christmas song mondegreens.
What is a mondegreen? The term refers to misheard words in a song. According to Leanne Italie of the Associated Press, who interviewed expert Grant Barrett, the word “mondegreen” arose from a 1954 Harper’s Magazine column written by Sylvia Wright. Wright discovered that for years she had misheard (and mis-repeated) the first stanza of the Scottish ballad “The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray.”
The original line from the ballad: “They have slain the Earl of Moray, and laid him on the green.”
What Ms. Wright heard: “They have slain the Earl of Moray, and the Lady Mondegreen.”
Christmas songs, especially as sung by children, are ripe for mondegreens. Here are my five favorites (in English).
1. From ‘Silent Night’ – “…sleep in heavenly peas…”
2. From ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ – “…6 geezers laying…”
3. Also from ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ – “…9 lazy Hansens…” (instead of “ladies dancing”)
4. From ‘Santa Claus Is Comin to Town’ – “…making a list, of chicken and rice…”
5. From ‘Winter Wonderland’ – “Later on milk and spiders, as we dream by the fire.” (instead of “Later on we’ll conspire…”)
Do you have some favorite Christmas song mondegreens? Please share!
DK Consulting of Colorado 