Let’s be honest. A lot of technical writing is… not fun to read. (It’s okay. We’ve all been there.) Whether it’s a dense science explanation, a slightly chaotic maths resource, or a technical document that made perfect sense at 2 am but less so now – sometimes what you need

The quick answer It is astonishingly easy to get some words confused. This is one of the worst offenders. If you just want the quick version: So: That is the rule. You can stop here if you like. Why “its” looks wrong If you are still here, you are probably

When one sentence becomes a problem I recently edited a job description for someone advertising for a new employee. The first line looked something like this: Example (before editing): The Communications Manager will:a) Provide communications expertise to the Director, Public Manager, and Technical Team, in the fields of Technical Communications

When to use numerals vs words The eternal dilemma: whether to spell out a number in full, or use a numeral. You have probably been told to write out numbers under fifty. Or twenty. Or one hundred. It varies depending on who you ask. So James has “five dogs” but

Why good writing needs someone who doesn’t understand it Let’s take a moment to talk about candles. Candles are long things made of wax, with a wick that you light. Just about all of you would be able to picture what I’m describing. Why? Because you already know what it

If you work with technical documents, reports or educational material, you will eventually run into some very strange spacing problems. These issues usually appear because someone tried to force Word to behave in a particular way using spaces or repeated “enter” keys. Unfortunately, word processors are not particularly forgiving when