Newsletter

Newsletter Issue 49, 12 July 2001

ISSN 1442-8652

Editor: Jean Hollis Weber
jean@jeanweber.com
http://www.jeanweber.com

In this issue...

Possible publishing delays
Geoff Hart's User's Advocate Column on TECHWR-L site
Book: E-What? A guide to new media style and usage
Online resources
    Columbia Guide to Online Style (Citations)
    IEEE Computer Society Style Guide
    Beginner's Guide to HTML
Intellectual property and "deep linking" of web sites
Helping non-writers learn to write better
Lori Lathrop's Indexing Skills Workshop is coming to Australia
Microsoft Word tips
    Extracting embedded graphics from Word 97 documents
    The Work menu
    Templates and styles
Books available from Jean Hollis Weber
    Taming Microsoft Word
    Editing Online Help
    Electronic Editing
Subscription information

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Possible publishing delays

I'm heading off again on a lengthy trip, this time in the 4WD motorhome, heading for Lake Eyre in South Australia. We expect to be gone for at least two months. This year I'll be putting more effort into finding ways to get on the Internet using my laptop computer from remote parts of the country, but past experience suggests I won't have much time to write anything worth publishing.

If I do have time to write and publish, my priority will be my travel newsletter and website, Avalook, which has been much neglected in the past six months. If you're interested, it's here http://www.avalook.com.au/

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Geoff Hart's User's Advocate Column on TECHWR-L site

Geoff Hart, an editor I often quote in this newsletter, has an online column called "User's Advocate" on the TECHWR-L site, http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html

A recent column, titled "Sometimes Playing Dumb Makes Things Work Better," makes the case for an editor questioning the content of documents, not just correcting grammatical and other errors. As we all know, a document can be accurate and correct, but still be inappropriate for its audience. http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/magazine/usersadvocate/usersadvocate_playingdumb.html

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Book: E-What? A guide to new media style and usage

"E-What? A Guide to the Quirks of New Media Style and Usage," from the Editors of EEI Press, was published September 2000 by EEI Press, ISBN 0935012257.

Steve Outing of the Content Exchange has a detailed review at http://www.content-exchange.com/cx/html/newsletter/2-9/bk2-9.5.htm

While you're at the Content Exchange site, you might sign up for their free newsletter, or just generally have a look around at the good material on that site. It's mostly from the point of view of working journalists, but much of the material is applicable to anyone writing or editing for online use.

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Online resources

Columbia Guide to Online Style (Citations)

Columbia University Press has the Columbia Guide to Online Style online. The MLA-Style Citations of Electronic Sources pages are here: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html

IEEE Computer Society Style Guide

Handy if you need to edit papers going to their journals, or do any work for someone using their style. http://www.computer.org/author/style/index.htm

Beginner's Guide to HTML

If you edit HTML materials, you should know at least some basic HTML. If you have your own website, you should not rely on a program that converts or creates web pages for you, because if something goes wrong, you won't have a clue how to fix it. With some knowledge of HTML, you can solve many problems - or at least recognise what is causing the problems.

Here's one of the many places to learn HTML online: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html. You can read the Beginner's Guide online or access the printable version.

(Added June 2003) Another good tutorial for learning HTML is here: http://www.HTMLCodeTutorial.com. The site recently added a Help Forum, which you can click on from the home page and get personalized help.

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Intellectual property and "deep linking" of web sites

As editors, we need to be aware of copyright and related intellectual property issues. New questions keep arising from the Internet. Some of these questions concern links from one site to another, particularly when the link is to a page other than the first ("home") page of the site.

In general, if you link to any page on another site in such a way that the other site's material looks like it's your own (without the other site's permission), that's not acceptable. However, some sites object to links to any page except their first page, even when you make it perfectly clear that the other page is not on your site. This is usually because they want visitors to see the advertisements or other material on their first page.

Many people, including me, want to help our readers find the information they want quickly, so we give the direct link, instead of trying to explain how to find something that is buried several layers deep in another site. Are we infringing someone else's intellectual property rights?

The Gigalaw site has a good article on the legalities of this question. It begins: "The practice of deep linking - when one web site links to a page deep within another site - has been a great source of controversy in the Internet community. Although at least one case failed to find this practice illegal, it remains an unclear area of Internet law. This article explains why." http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2000-all/kubiszyn-2000-05b-all.html

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Helping non-writers learn to write better

Editors often work with people who aren't professional writers, so we do a lot of teaching. On one list some time ago, someone asked what topics to concentrate on when trying to help people improve their writing. Someone else listed these common errors, which are much the same as I've seen over many years of editing.

When training technical editors (who often aren't sure where to start - other than the obvious grammar, punctuation and spelling errors - or what is appropriate for an editor to do, I suggest they look for these problems, among others.

Readers are encouraged to contribute additions to this list.

• Problems with parallel structure
• Lack of agreement
  • Between subject and verb, especially when words are interposed between them
  • Between adverbs and their antecedents
• Dangling modifiers
• Excessive use of the passive voice
• Sentences bloated with unnecessary words; documents bloated with unnecessary paragraphs
• Taking a long time to get to the point
• Poor planning in documents; disregard of the readers' needs
• Vocabulary and usage problems: a general lack of knowledge about connotation and the shades of meaning to be found in synonyms, and unfamiliarity with variations in tone
• Usage problems: affect/effect, continual/continuous, and the like
• Phonetic misspellings: "site" for "cite", "manor" for "manner"
• A general ignorance of the role of formatting in making the information on the page more accessible.
• A desire to show off technical knowledge, whether it's appropriate for the task at hand or not; thus the use of acronyms, industry jargon terms and technical terminology.

A helpful approach is to avoid discussing "rules" as much as possible, instead focusing on writing as a practical solution for the practical problem of getting an idea out of one brain and into another. If something helps deliver the message, that's good; if something interferes with the message, that's bad.

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Lori Lathrop's Indexing Skills Workshop is coming to Australia

Lori Lathrop is well-known for her indexing skills workshops for technical communicators. From her announcement:

"The one-day workshop is for writers and editors who need to create usable indexes for either printed or online documents. Writers will learn to apply several productivity tips and techniques in indexing technical documentation.

"To request a brochure for any of these workshops, contact LoriLathrop@compuserve.com or call 704-531-0021. You may also download a brochure as a PDF file from the Indexing Skills Web site, http://www.indexingskills.com

"DOWN UNDER DATES AND LOCATIONS October 18 & 19 - Brisbane, Australia To be announced - Melbourne, Australia

"If you are interested in attending a workshop in Brisbane or Melbourne, send an e-mail message to LoriLathrop@compuserve.com

"INSTRUCTOR QUALIFICATIONS Lori Lathrop is a Past President of the American Society of Indexers (ASI) and a Senior Member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). The second edition of her book, "An Indexer's Guide to the Internet", was published by Information Today Inc. in 1999, and she is currently writing Indexing Skills for Technical Communicators, which is based on her workshops."

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Microsoft Word tips

Extracting embedded graphics from Word 97 documents

Keith Soltys keith@soltys.ca suggests a solution for the common problem of receiving Microsoft Word 97 documents with embedded graphics, and needing to extract the graphics from the file. Copying to the clipboard, then saving as a graphics file often results in fuzzy graphics. It's also a long and tedious process if you need to extract a lot of graphics.

Keith's solution is "... saving the file as HTML. Word creates GIF or JPG files of all the graphics. It's the fastest way I've found of saving graphics as files when they've been embedded in a Word doc.

Keith has been host of "Internet Resources for Technical Communicators" since 1994. http://www.soltys.ca/techcomm.html

The "Work" menu

Just when I think I've found all the tricky features I need to make Word useful to me, someone tells me a new one. This tip comes from the WORD-PC list.

"Work" is a menu you can add through Tools > Customize > Commands > Built-in Menus. It gives instant access to files you need frequently. To do this:

1. Add the Work menu to a toolbar.
2. Open in Word the file you want to add to the menu.
3. Click on Work > Add to Work Menu.

From then on you can easily access that file directly. It differs from the "recently used" list at the bottom of the File menu because your files don't fall off the bottom of the list when you open a lot of other files.

Templates and styles

To understand templates and styles, work through John McGhie's terrific "Creating a Template (part 2)", available on the Word MVP Website at http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm

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Books available from Jean Hollis Weber

Taming Microsoft Word

116 pages
ISBN 0 9578419 2 2
Published February 2001

A quick reference for writers, editors, and others who need to use some of Word's more advanced features. This book is an expanded and updated version of Chapters 3 and 4 in my first book, Electronic Editing. Taming Microsoft Word is quick to read, yet packed with essential information.

A full contents list and information on downloading the PDF file and paying for it are available here: http://www.jeanweber.com/books/tameword.htm

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Editing Online Help

155 pages
ISBN 0 9578419 0 6
Published October 2000

For students, writers, and editors who are developing online help for computer software, and for their managers and clients.

Supplements tool-specific instruction by presenting the basics of help content development, regardless of the operating system running the application, the type of help being produced, or the tools used to produce it.

More information here: http://www.jeanweber.com/books/olhbk.htm

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Electronic Editing

248 pages
ISBN 0 646 38037 0
Published October 1999

A quick start guide for editing students, experienced editors making the switch from paper to online, and anyone who needs to write or edit electronically.

More information here: http://www.jeanweber.com/books/e-edit.htm

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© Copyright 2001-2003, Jean Hollis Weber. All rights reserved.

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