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How to Express Yourself Through Writing

Published on February 1, 2005 by in Writing

Most people who write poetry or fiction do so because they want to express themselves. Self-expression takes many forms, but poetry and fiction are two of the purest forms. What you write will always be an expression of your inner self. Still, expression is not always a simple task. Anyone who has sat down to write knows how hard it is to find the words to say exactly what they want to say. What comes out is often close to a person’s feelings, but rarely seems to express them perfectly.

Below are the four barriers to self-expression that come up most frequently. If you want to write what you feel, you must learn to overcome them.

Poor Grammar Hurts Self Expression

Learning and practicing the basic rules of grammar and style is a key to self-expression. When you know and accept the rules of a language, those rules become tools instead of barriers. William Strunk’s excellent guide to grammar can be found free on the web at: http://www.bartleby.com/141/. This is an older, public domain version of the book The Elements of Style. This book is about as concise and inexpensive a guide to grammar as you can find. Buy it, read it, learn it, live it. There are many more guides, most of them more detailed and explanatory. I have at least a half a dozen different grammar guides, but as the occasional email points out, I still make mistakes.

Poor Vocabulary Hurts Self Expression

The second barrier to self-expression is vocabulary. I do not mean that you need to know hundreds of four-syllable words in order to express yourself, but knowing the right word to express your thought is an essential element of good writing. Most people think a thesaurus is a good way to build their vocabulary, but frequently a thesaurus can lead you down the wrong path. Just because two words have similar meanings does not mean they have identical meanings. It is far more important to read a dictionary than a thesaurus. Look up words, even words you think you know, and pay attention to the definitions. An excellent dictionary to buy is The American Heritage Dictionary. I am not a big fan of Webster’s Dictionaries; most of their definitions seem incomplete to me. The king of all English language dictionaries is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It is the most in-depth and comprehensive dictionary in the history of man. The OED is almost as expensive as it is extensive, so visit your local library if you cannot afford a copy.

A Lack of Honesty Hurts Self Expression

While the first two barriers to self-expression are technical, the third is psychological. Self-expression requires a level of honesty and fearlessness that most people do not possess. To begin with, you need to know what your feelings are. This requires taking the time to look at yourself and to try to understand why you do things. Once you know what your feelings are, you need to be brave enough to put them on paper. Some people never achieve that level of honesty. One way to work on breaking down barriers is to try automatic writing. Sit down with a notebook or your computer and write whatever comes to mind, as quickly as possible. Do not edit yourself and do not try to control what goes onto the paper. You can do this for increments of five to ten minutes or longer. Personally, I find that I don’t get a good automatic flow going until I’ve been at it for over fifteen minutes.

A Lack of Effort Hurts Self Expression

Writing well requires hard work. There is no easy way around this. The more frequently you write and edit, the better you will get at it. Most professionals spend hours a day writing. If your goal is to become adept at expressing yourself, especially through poetry or fiction, you need to understand that you won’t automatically be perfect at it. Even after years of practice, not everything you write will be worth reading. The key is to keep writing. When you have significant writing experience, you can plow though the dry times and take greater advantage of inspiration when it comes.

One of the most inspirational books I have ever read about writing is If You Want to Write by the late Brenda Ueland. When I read her book, it usually takes only a couple of paragraphs before I feel like writing again.

For More Information

 
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What is an Allegory?

Published on January 25, 2005 by in Writing

An allegory is an abstract representation of principals or ideas through the use of characters, figures or events. It is also the classification for a creative work, such as a story or a play, which makes use of allegory. In most cases, allegory is the term used (rather than metaphor) when the symbolic representations reflect an aspect of human behavior or values.

The term allegory originated from the Greek term allegoria (speaking otherwise). It came into common use through plays, generally religious, which would act out human frailties in order to teach a lesson. Characters (often taking the form of animals) would actually be named for their representation. The betrayer would be named “betrayal”, the evil character named “evil” the faithful character named “faith”. The characters had few, if any, characteristics beyond their representation of a concept. These plays were publicly called allegories and were performed at religious gatherings.

Allegories took many forms over the years, such as fables and parables. The story of the tortoise and the hare is an allegory, expressing the belief that the slow and steady will always defeat the quick and prideful in the end.

While the old-time allegories were very direct in showing the audience what represented what, over time allegories became more subtle. In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, for example, the white whale is seen as an allegory for evil. In the Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, the fight clubs are an allegory for modern man’s repressed primal instincts and the need to express them.

Most novels and plays contain some allegorical elements. Symbolic representations of emotions or dilemmas are such a common concept that often writers include them without even realizing they are doing so. Of course, the most masterful of writers are very conscious of the allegories they are creating, even when the allegories seem subtle to the audience.

For more information read:

The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition by C. S. Lewis

Allegories of Reading by Paul De Man

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

 
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How Technical Writers use Microsoft Visio

Published on January 18, 2005 by in Writing

For the past two weeks, I have been fixing FrameMaker document graphics. Most of the documents I am working with are the same ones I mentioned in Boilerplate. The problem is that the graphics contained in those documents do not conform to company standards in multiple ways. In order to conform to company standards a FrameMaker graphic needs to be:

  • Published as a postscript file or (more frequently) a Microsoft Visio file.
  • Given a standardized name / file number that appears in the bottom right corner of the graphic.
  • Stored in Documentum in a special graphics archive.
  • Pasted into an anchored frame within FrameMaker.

The SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) who created these files are expected to conform only to the first rule, and the documentation team is supposed to finish the job. Unfortunately, most of the SMEs are either unaware of the process or choose to ignore it (there is evidence of both on a case-by-case basis). This means that the graphics the SMEs put into the FrameMaker documents can come from anywhere. In practice, however, most improperly created graphics come from one of three applications, Microsoft Word (the most painful to transfer), Microsoft PowerPoint (bad, but not as bad as Word) and FrameMaker’s own drawing tool (least painful). My job is to go through each document, transfer any non-conforming files into Visio, fix the graphics problems, set the file name, save and store the base graphic files in the appropriate Documentum archive, then paste the revised graphic back into FrameMaker.

Visio is a surprisingly useful product, despite the fact that it is sold by Microsoft. The reason it is not as terrible as Word or PowerPoint is that this program did not originally come from Microsoft, but came instead from a company called . . . Visio. Microsoft bought Visio out in the year 2000, and as of this point Microsoft still has not managed to ruin the tool. Visio actually works.

Visio has some of the features of draw and paint programs, but it has a much different emphasis. Visio is used to quickly create flowcharts, graphs, charts, schematics and other technical or process-based images. Visio accomplishes this by providing the user with icons, charts, and line tools that can quickly be placed and connected on the page. Each icon is also set to allow the input of short descriptive text. The learning curve for this application is twofold. Not only does the user need to learn how to use the tools of the program, but they also need a firm grasp of the theories behind the creation technical images and how they are used to present information.

Of course, SMEs generally have very little training in either technical graphic creation or Visio. This means that many of the graphics accompanying these documents are in bad shape. The worst of the files are the ones created in Microsoft Word. If you have access to the original Word document that contains the graphics, you can make a painless transfer from Word to Visio. Unfortunately, if you do not have the original file (I usually do not) and have to rely on the image as it is pasted into FrameMaker, the transfer is so poor you will often find yourself redrawing the graphic from scratch.

The FrameMaker drawing tool, on the other hand, pastes into Visio with a minimum of fuss. The most common problem I encounter with it is that the text in the graphics will sometimes crowd together. When this happens, I can generally fix the problem by selecting the image and stretching it slightly. The ratios of the graphic elements stay the same, but the text gets the room it needs and the image looks the way it was meant to.

Many aspiring technical writers do not understand how important graphic and design skills are in technical writing. When people hear the term technical writing, the word writing has too great an influence on their thinking. The term technical communication is actually more accurate, but has little chance of becoming the widespread term for what we do. The truth is that charts, graphs, drawings and screen captures are often more useful that a well-written sentence when you are trying to instruct or inform a person. In most cases, the images will be the starting point for readers.

In addition to graphics, the visual design of a page can either help the reader or hinder them. When a document is poorly designed visually, it erodes the reader’s confidence in the material and hinders their ability to digest information quickly. Every aspiring technical writer should take a visual design class.

Here are two valuable books on the subject of visual design:

Robin Williams. The Non-Designer’s Design Book. isbn 1-56609-159-4. Amazon

This book is an excellent introduction to the ideas behind effective visual design. It is not particularly long or detailed. It simply shows and tells you why certain ideas work better when designing anything from a business card to a brochure to a manual. I have never seen a more straightforward presentation of visual design.

Charles Kosterlnick & David D. Roberts. Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators. isbn 0-205-20022-2. Amazon

This is a formal textbook on visual design with an emphasis on technical communication. It discusses both high-level concepts and low-level details. This book is far from quick read, but if you stick with it, you will gain an excellent knowledge of visual design from a technical communicator’s standpoint.

 
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Using Conditional Text and Boilerplate with Adobe FrameMaker

Published on January 6, 2005 by in Writing

Subject Matter Experts

On this project, I provided formatting and editing support for a group of subject matter experts (SMEs) who were putting out a new product. There were several difficulties involved with the project. To begin with, the subject matter experts were not particularly interested in the project. While the product would be new to the market, it had been in development for several years, and most of the experts were now working on a newer revision of the product. In other words, the version that was going to market would immediately be obsolete, and most of the work now focused on the next step rather than the current piece.

Another challenge was that no one was willing to step up and be the document owner. This problem was deeply frustrating for my supervisor, who has been dealing with these documents much longer than I have. The document consisted of three volumes containing ten chapters apiece. While the individual chapters had SMEs who were responsible for them, the overall document had no leader to take charge of putting the book together and making sure that the SMEs, who viewed the document team as a nuisance and said so, to provide the required support.

Boilerplate

My task was to go through each of the chapters and make sure they conformed to the boilerplate. The boilerplate was a set list of sections and section content that each SME had to match to their piece of the product. I had nothing to do with the development of the boilerplate, and I did not have a particularly high opinion of the way it had been set up, but I had to enforce it.

The other difficulty with my part of the project was that this was my first exposure to this product. It was a highly technical piece of hardware, and there was no time for me to devote to learning about it. My job was to go through each document, fix what I could, and put notes by anything I did not know enough about to fix on my own.

Another challenge was that the SMEs had frequently strayed from the boilerplate. The boilerplate had 21 different sections, only one of which was optional. In almost every chapter, the document had both missing sections and sections that were not part of the boilerplate. I would insert any missing sections (with notes about adding content) and flag any non-boilerplate sections. I would also give my best guess to the SMEs about where the information belonged. Finally, I made sure everything was in the correct order.

After I dealt with the section issues, I focused on the content issues. For example, one section in consisted of sets of tables. The SMEs had a choice between two sets of tables they could use to input key product data. If their part of the project used items from the A list, they were supposed to use table A. If their part of the product used items from the B list, they were supposed to use table B. In almost every case, the SMEs used the wrong table, leaving gaps where their information did not conform to the columns of the tables. In each case, I had to reformat the data to fit the proper table. This process was complicated because each item table linked to a summary table through a series of FrameMaker cross references that were dependent on paragraph types. Each paragraph had to change when the tables changed, and so I had to recreate all of the cross-references.

Conditional Text

Finally, there was the issue of conditional text. Conditional text is a Framemaker feature that allows writers to designate text to be hidden or displayed under specific circumstances. By doing this, you can use the same files to print out documents for different sets of audiences. In this case, we used conditional text to set levels of security. For example, highly sensitive information could be set to internal. Information that would go out to our corporate partners, but not to the public, could be set to secure. Publicly viewable information would be unconditional. This is just an example. In our case, we could apply about fifteen different conditions we could apply to text. According to the boilerplate, each section required at least one of four different conditions. I had to go through the document and reassign conditions until the documents conformed to the boilerplate rules.

Because the SMEs were neither eager to work with me nor compelled to work with me by someone on their side of the document, getting them to give me information was often difficult. It was even harder because, as a contractor, I have almost no authority. This meant that if I did not get a response I had to then escalate to my supervisor, who had to call the SMEs or their manager or their manager’s manager until we finally got a response.

As you can see, this was far from an ideal documentation project, although it is closer to the norm that most of us would like to think. As a contractor though, poorly planned, managed or executed projects rarely upset me. I have no stake in the outcome of the project. When I was a regular employee, watching a project go wrong would make me worry about my job and about the company as a whole. As a contractor, I only care about doing the best job I can for the client, no matter how misguided or mismanaged the project. If the client wants me to take ten weeks to accomplish something that should take a week, I can take ten weeks. After all, they pay me by the hour. Such is the life of a contractor.

 
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