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Tag Archives: Document Metadata

On Document Style: How to Use Section Breaks in Microsoft Word

Tweet No, you’re not mistaken — that’s a title you’ve seen before. It was the title of the application article on my last Document Style series, and it’ll probably be the title of the third article in next week’s, too. Because that’s what we’re doing. Whether you’re trying to manage text columns, headers and footers, […]

On Document Style: Headers and Footers

Tweet Yesterday I told a story about Annabelle playing pretend, whether that meant announcing herself to be a ferocious dragon to scare off things that go bump, or an innocent young babe to get away with outright disobedience. Either way, there’s magic in a little bit of delusion. And if you read the article when […]

On Document Style: Declaring Your Variables

Tweet As I’m sure all three-year-olds do, our precious little Annabelle has an incredible imagination, and she puts it to great use. As a storyteller, of course, I’ve cherished every moment of that. Or…well, nearly all of them. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here, but one of my proudest moments as a father […]

On Document Templates: The Wall that Made Me Sad

I made a fake image in Photoshop–my fantasy world map hanging above the mantle in a fancy frame–and it reveals a surprising amount about document templates.

Band Poster (Technical Writing Exercise)

Remember last week’s article about the shape of a document? Remember that hideous image growling out at you halfway down the scroll? Well, this week your assignment is to do one better.

The Shape of a Document

Last fall I taught my first college-level writing course — Technical Writing at Oklahoma Christian University (my alma mater). My class consisted of a bunch of computer science and information technologies students, and a handful of English majors. It was an interesting mix.

I wasn’t out to teach them how to do my job. I did ask, first day of class, how many of them had considered becoming a Technical Writer after graduation. The answer (quite predictably) was none. When I got around to asking what they were planning on doing, every one of them named a profession that would require some proficiency with technical writing, even if it wasn’t their main job description.

Audience Analysis

My dad is in his first Creative Writing class, as I’ve mentioned before. His first assignment was to write something for the class to review. The assignment was vague, but its destiny was clear: the whole class would pass judgment on whatever it was he wrote.

Negotiating a Connection

Tweet Once upon a time, you had to write an intro. Maybe it was for a business letter (probably a query letter, if you’re one of my Creative Writing readers). Maybe it was for a memo you had to write at work. More likely it was for an English class, or the essay portion of […]