Technically Speaking

The other day I was walking through a parking lot and I overheard one side of a phone conversation. The person speaking said, “I’m the link between the geniuses and the regular people.”

The comment floored me, because I think that is true about technical writing in general, and about my job at my company in particular. I’m amazed at what our engineers and linguists know and how good they are at developing our software. I work with some seriously smart people. They are fantastic at their job: developing our software. Then I get to come in and become the link between the geniuses and the regular people (i.e. everybody else). I get to make recommendations on improving the user interface to make it more intuitive and easy to use. Then I get to write the documentation that answers all the questions people will have about how to use the software. In a very real sense I’m the link between the geniuses and the regular people.

Have I mentioned that I love my job?

There is actually quite a bit of confusion regarding words that begin with the prefix bi- (biweekly, bimonthly, etc.). For example, biweekly means both every other week, and twice a week. Similarly, bimonthly means every other month and twice a month.  In the publishing industry bi- words usually take the every other connotation, while in education bi- words usually take the twice per period connotation (Source: Merriam Webster’s English Usage Dictionary).

As writers it is up to us to ensure clear communication. MW’s English Usage Dictionary points out that often writers expect that readers will automatically know which usage the writers intend, and therefore they don’t clarify their meaning. However, if you are working in HR, and you tell employees they are going to be paid bimonthly, you better be sure your employees understand whether you mean they will get paid 24 times a year, or six — it makes a big difference.

I’m a volunteer writer for a non-profit organization that recently introduced a new feature that allows users to set e-mail digest notifications to be sent weekly, bimonthly, or monthly. I asked the developer what they meant by bimonthly; in this case, bimonthly means twice a month.

The rule of thumb: for clarity don’t use bi- words if you can avoid them. Instead of bimonthly, we’re changing our application to say semimonthly, which is more clear. If you really need to use a bi- word, it is best to provide either contextual evidence to indicate your meaning, or spell it out in parenthesis after the first usage of the word, as in: This bimonthly publication (published six times annually)…

Now you know.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit a technical communication class at Brigham Young University and give a presentation on technical communication in the real world. The presentation went quite well; I enjoyed talking with the students, and I really enjoyed the subject. <grin>

It hasn’t been that many years since I was in their shoes, and it was fun to realize how far I’ve come and how much I really do know about the field, the tools, and the job market.

I did the presentation itself using a new tool: Google Presentations. I created my slide deck using PowerPoint, but I uploaded it to my Google account and ran the presentation live from there in Firefox. I used F11 to make the presentation go full-screen, and I was quite pleased, in the end, with how it worked. All I needed to know was that the computer I’d be using had a projector and an Internet connection. My file was safely stored in my Google Docs account, so I wasn’t worried about bringing a flash drive or anything, nor was I worried about downloading restrictions that might be in place on the computer I’d be using. I also didn’t have to worry about the software set–or even the OS on the computer; everybody with an Internet connection has a browser.

Google Presentations, for its part, did a good job presenting my slide deck. The interface was pretty easy, and I was able to get a full-screen version, which is what I really wanted. I tried doing some edits in the Presentations editor, and decided to continue editing in PowerPoint. I think that is how I would do the process again, if I had to, because I found that Google Presentations wasn’t as powerful for authoring as PowerPoint, which may be due to the fact that I’m so much more comfortable with PowerPoint.

The presentation went well. Several students made positive comments after the class to the professor, and I’m already planning on doing it again next semester.

On a related note, I’ve been asked by the professor to be part of a BYU Technical Communications Internship Professional Advisory Committee. Basically we are going to help find ways to provide technical communication students with opportunities for professional internships that will better prepare them for a technical communications career. Sounds like fun. Count me in!