February /March 2004

Volume 44, Number 4

Tips from the trenches

by Deb Lockwood

Learning — we constantly learn lessons from different sources on various topics. As long as I live, I hope I never stop learning. I am "blessed" in this area because I have a trainer sharing the house with me. My husband, Evan, is a corporate trainer. He and I are the practical application of the phrase "opposites attract."

Having both a technical writer and a trainer in the same family has been interesting at times. I've learned some valuable lessons from my husband that are applicable to my professional life. Those lessons are the subject of this article.

Lesson #1: Focus on the learner

In technical communication circles, the learner would be the reader, the user, or the audience. Whatever you do, make sure your reader understands what you are saying. Another word for that in our industry is "usability." You can see usability problems in many places.

• The reader cannot follow the procedural steps
• The user cannot locate information on a Web site
• The student cannot understand where to go for further information
• The reader cannot locate the information by looking at the guide's index

What are some practical ways to focus on the learner?

• Make your writing intuitive. Give your readers what they expect when and where they expect it. Save the creative writing for your novel or for article submissions.
• Test the content on someone who doesn't know the subject. The prime candidate for this "someone" is a person in the same demographic group as your audience.

If the audience can follow procedural steps or find the information he or she is looking for, then you have effectively focused on the learner.

Lesson #2: Add fun

Adding fun to my writing helps me and helps the reader. At times, fun elements are not appropriate (e.g., describing emergency procedural steps), but in many cases, adding fun to content enhances the reader's retention of the information.

Fun includes adding color, humor, graphics, charts, or unusual spacing. How about adding scenarios, games, characters, or stories to your content? Would the reader better understand the content if you were to give a "for example" in the text? Try creating a recurring character and have that character experience the various scenarios throughout your content.

Lesson #3: Rules? What rules?

True confession: I am a rule follower. I have always followed the rules, no matter what the rules were. Rules of the road, school rules, grammar rules — for me, they are one and the same. If it's a rule, it's meant to be kept. Ah, but not so for a trainer. My husband is a rule breaker and has been since he was a baby. To him there is no such thing as a rule that cannot be broken.

On occasion, it's okay to bend or break the rules. This has been the most difficult lesson for me to learn. I like styles, templates, and usage rules. When I write, I want my Chicago Manual of Style and Strunk and White's Elements of Style nearby.

Now I realize that breaking the occasional grammar or style rule can make a point more effectively than keeping the rule. The keys are to know your audience, and to break the rules only when appropriate. Use this technique sparingly, because a little goes a long way. Try breaking a rule now and again. You might be surprised by how creative you feel!

These are three of the things I have learned from my trainer husband. When we've worked together on projects, we have had our struggles with the rule breaker versus the rule follower roles, and vice versa. And it's interesting that neither of us really wins or loses those struggles. Rather, we strike compromises.

By focusing on the learner, adding some fun to my writing, and giving myself permission to break the occasional rule, I find that I have become less brittle and unyielding in my writing. Overall, I think I am a better technical communicator because of what I have learned from this trainer. What has my husband learned from me? I think you'll have to ask him yourself!