Comments on: 10 Irresistible Potholes that Writers find on the Road to Globalization http://thecontentwrangler.com/2009/10/28/10-irresistible-potholes-that-writers-find-on-the-road-to-globalization/ Content is a business asset worthy of being managed Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:31:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By:   Weekly links roundup by Communications from DMN http://thecontentwrangler.com/2009/10/28/10-irresistible-potholes-that-writers-find-on-the-road-to-globalization/comment-page-1/#comment-541   Weekly links roundup by Communications from DMN Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:41:31 +0000 http://thecontentwrangler.com/?p=2747#comment-541 [...] 10 potholes that writers find on the road to globalization [...] [...] 10 potholes that writers find on the road to globalization [...]

]]> By: Mike Dillinger http://thecontentwrangler.com/2009/10/28/10-irresistible-potholes-that-writers-find-on-the-road-to-globalization/comment-page-1/#comment-544 Mike Dillinger Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:04:28 +0000 http://thecontentwrangler.com/?p=2747#comment-544 BTW, the missing hyperlink in Pothole #6 is to this URL: http://www.io.com/~hcexres/style/noun_stacks.html BTW, the missing hyperlink in Pothole #6 is to this URL:
http://www.io.com/~hcexres/style/noun_stacks.html

]]> By: Buckley Jeppson http://thecontentwrangler.com/2009/10/28/10-irresistible-potholes-that-writers-find-on-the-road-to-globalization/comment-page-1/#comment-543 Buckley Jeppson Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:49:41 +0000 http://thecontentwrangler.com/?p=2747#comment-543 Once on an editing job I was charged with "massaging" an IT user manual for translation. My favorite paragraph was: "Guess what! One doesn't have to use the mouse to do these things. There are lots of alternative ways you can do the same tasks. Makes no difference, friend. Pick your poison. It's six of one, half-dozen of the other." There were enough pothole violations to render the road impassable, and that's exactly what happened. I rewrote a few pages and took them to the client with an estimate of what it would take to fix the document. They agreed with the need for the rewrite, crunched some numbers, and decided it would no longer be worth the foreign sales. The badly written document killed the product overseas. Once on an editing job I was charged with “massaging” an IT user manual for translation. My favorite paragraph was:
“Guess what! One doesn’t have to use the mouse to do these things. There are lots of alternative ways you can do the same tasks. Makes no difference, friend. Pick your poison. It’s six of one, half-dozen of the other.”

There were enough pothole violations to render the road impassable, and that’s exactly what happened. I rewrote a few pages and took them to the client with an estimate of what it would take to fix the document. They agreed with the need for the rewrite, crunched some numbers, and decided it would no longer be worth the foreign sales. The badly written document killed the product overseas.

]]> By: Tom Guarnera http://thecontentwrangler.com/2009/10/28/10-irresistible-potholes-that-writers-find-on-the-road-to-globalization/comment-page-1/#comment-542 Tom Guarnera Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:37:32 +0000 http://thecontentwrangler.com/?p=2747#comment-542 Nice article. Pretty much everything you wrote can be applied even if you are not localizing the document. Clear, concise and straight forward writing is usually your best bet when writing any technical information. There are many writers out there. Surprisingly, the percentage of good writers that I have met through the years has been too low. Worse yet, the great writers can fit in a really small group. Nice article. Pretty much everything you wrote can be applied even if you are not localizing the document. Clear, concise and straight forward writing is usually your best bet when writing any technical information. There are many writers out there. Surprisingly, the percentage of good writers that I have met through the years has been too low. Worse yet, the great writers can fit in a really small group.

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