Examples of repertoire how to#

They focus on the terminology because they know they have to get that right, and the writing goes downhill. My experience as an editor shows that when people are outside of their comfort zones, they sometimes slip into mindless translation. In fact, I edited this exact sentence once, except with a solvent as a subject noun.

This next sentence will probably make you wince: “The addition of lemon juice was done after 15 minutes.” But replace “lemon juice” with a chemical name, and I see this kind of sentence all the time. Try searching target texts for “was done” and see how many you have to remove. Verbs that convey passive voice include: are, is, was, were, be, being, been.

Maintenance and restocking of inventory.

Here are a few very simple examples, with the least preferable English crossed out. That means they are looking for a verb, ideally a punchy one. English users like to know what the item does. In the past, scientific writing required the use of the passive voice, but there is a movement among scientific writing authorities to reduce this, so the passive is now preferred only in a methods section.Īctive voice requires the use of strong action verbs. The exceptions are rare: when the subject is unknown, or you would prefer not to specify the subject. Active VoiceĪs a general rule, use the active voice in English, even when the source is passive. Can you turn a paragraph into six bullet points? None of us read a wall of block text as effectively as a well-designed document. Split up, recast, and reorder thoughts for logical coherence. Avoid long sentences (anything with more than 21 words in English). Use plain, everyday words, not fancy words or jargon. The following concepts, even when applied in part, will improve technical writing. By “concise” I mean keeping it as short as possible while including all the important information-the point is not brevity for brevity’s sake. Concise and brief are often used interchangably in this context.

Examples of repertoire how to#

“Precise” is usually covered by the terms we choose, so this article focuses on how to produce clear and concise writing. That’s what effective technical writing takes. I am emphasizing writing precise, concise, and clear texts. We need to use a style guide as our reference, not the Internet. Too much scientific and technical writing is not written by native English speakers, and a great deal is written by people who seemingly don’t know or care much about the written word. For the same reason, random web searches rarely provide reliable answers to technical style queries. Readers focus on measurable results and predictions. Authors may not think much about telling a great story. That’s obvious when we consider how poorly written many technical texts are. I’d even go so far as to say that the data is often much more important to people reading these documents than the words. Accuracy is so important that (Shock! Horror! Watch translators’ eyes pop out!) numbers may be more critical than words. Technical writing transmits technical information accurately. Knowing the intended audience is important for maintaining the appropriate register as we translate. Technical writers explain technology and related ideas to either a technical or a non-technical audience. This writing style can be used in any technical field. The author’s opinion is unimportant the focus remains on the technical content. Technical writing conveys information with an objective tone. For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that my premise is to discuss documents translated for information or publication, where our customer wants us to produce as effective a text as possible. Though many of the principles here apply to texts in any language, my native language is English, so all the examples I give are for effective English technical writing. I hope to persuade you that technical writing is a skill that can be learned and a fundamental part of the technical translator’s skill set. Although those are crucial, good technical writing is a third skill that makes a substantial difference to translation quality. We usually focus on subject-matter expertise or terminology research methods. Superb writing skills are not the first thing that comes to mind when talking about a technical translator’s skill set. Stylish Technical Writing: Worth Adding to Your RepertoireĬan you take ownership of your technical translations? Turn a verbose, unclear wall of block text into an effective document? Here’s how to pull in some key technical writing techniques to make your documents clean and concise.