Content Management Hart and Davidson define content management as “a set of practices for handling information, including how it is created, stored, retrieved, formatted and styled for delivery”. From a practical, every day, business point of view, what questions need answering here: Created: Is there an understanding among content writers/contributors about how content is created?…
Read moreInterviewing
Recently, as part of a sizeable project, I have had to create 4 questionnaires for a range of people in a particular profession. The 4 questionnaires applied to a set of 3 people. Person A answered 2 questionnaires, person B one questionnaire and person C also one questionnaire. In this instance, I introduced persons A…
Read moreSchemata V Less is More
During my working life to date, I had the good fortune to be part of a training team, tasked to train approximately 600 staff in a new IT system. The existing system was quite archaic and the new system presented a significant learning curve. The saying that underpinned the approach to training was “less is…
Read morePersuasion and Technical Writing 3
In Persuasion and Technical Writing 2, we explored language as a means of persuasion when presenting information. However there are other elements to consider when presenting information which broadly fall under the heading “Design”. A book I constantly refer to is the “Non-Designers Design Book” by Robin Williams. The book proposes four design principles, proximity,…
Read morePersuasion and Technical Writing 2
Another way to explore persuasion and technical writing is through the lens of readability formulas. which are used to predict readability. In the 1920’s these formulas were used in education to assess texts as suitable for the various grades in school and can now be found in areas such as insurance, law, health care and…
Read morePersuasion and Technical Writing 1
When this topic,persuasion, appeared in one of the text books, my initial reaction was quizzical. With a background in sales and service, I associated persuasion more with those areas. I considered technical writing as a framework to instruct, provide clear, step by step action based instructions. Furthermore I considered technical writing as devoid of emotion,…
Read moreWriting Style
An element of this course, I find challenging is writing style. My initial understanding of technical writing was one of clarity, short sentences, directive type writing. My experience of technical writing prior to the course was limited e.g. creating e-learning modules and training material. When I wrote, my approach to writing was objective in nature,…
Read moreTopic-based writing
CONCEPT As somebody who is involved in training and development and more recently project work, I am constantly thinking about delivery channels for information. From my own experience, delivering chunks of information (concepts) followed by an activity (process) can be a successful approach to delivering content. Consider a standard e-learning course, information followed by an…
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