Tag: writing

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A Reminder That ‘Fake News’ Is An Information Literacy Problem – Not A Technology Problem

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Beneath all “fake news,” misinformation, disinformation, digital falsehoods and foreign influence lies society’s failure to teach its citizenry information literacy: how to think critically about the deluge of information that confronts them in our modern digital age.
— Read on www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/07/07/a-reminder-that-fake-news-is-an-information-literacy-problem-not-a-technology-problem/

This is an argument I often make with the Academic Outreach team of my STC chapter, especially considering that 3 officers were History majors as undergrads.

Information literacy is a big part of content strategy. Understanding what is truly important is a huge chunk of us helping clients decipher what is needed moving forward.

This is a great article about information literacy, which goes well beyond technology.

–TechCommGeekMom

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TaxoDiary – Taxonomies in Information Science

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

TaxoDiary – Taxonomies in Information Science
— Read on taxodiary.com/2018/08/taxonomies-in-information-science/

Thanks to CJ Walker for posting this on LinkedIn.

This is a big part of my job right now, and this is an excellent way to clarify the difference between what a thesaurus is and taxonomy is. Taxonomy really is about the organization of the content so that the hierarchy makes sense.

Another analogy that I’ve used–which I got long ago from Val Swisher of Content Rules is how one can organize a closet. You can put the pants together, the shirts together, and the jackets together, but you could put all the red clothing together, all the blue clothing together, etc. Neither way is wrong, as long as it makes sense and others can follow the flow.

Except with me these days, it’s more about pharmaceutical departments and procedures. Still, even with those topics, we need to scale it back all the way to what are the objectives of the website we’re building, and how do we structure the website so that users can find what they need quickly and easily. Start with the foundational basics, and build from there.

I highly recommended this article if taxonomy isn’t your strength. It shows that it’s not as hard as it seems.

–TechCommGeekMom

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Remembering Carrie Fisher, Writer

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

As the list of favorite celebrity talent seems to grow even as 2016 comes to an end, I thought it would be good to share this video, created by the website, The MarySue.

Carrie Fisher, one of the latest stars to have passed (just today, at this writing), is usually thought of for her iconic role as Princess/General Leia Organa in the Star Wars movies. But while I enjoyed her in those roles, I think I appreciated her more as herself. She wasn’t only an actress who appeared in other roles than the Star Wars movies, but I was always impressed by her success as a writer. I admit that I haven’t read her books (but I think I need to look into them now), but I saw the movie based on one of her books, Postcards from the Edge.  I always enjoyed watching interviews with her, especially in recent years. I know she was very open about talking about her battles with substance abuse and mental illness. She made it okay for people to realize that you can “have it all” and still have some serious issues, and come out of it in one piece. She helped to de-stigmatize mental illness and show that there can still be a smart, witty person attached to that mental illness who can contribute to society.  And for that–I am grateful she made her mark.

The video below also showed a related talent that used her writing skills, specifically as a script doctor. Now doesn’t that sound like a cool job? What struck me in this video was what she’s quoted as saying in the end of why she stopped doing it. It was something that as a technical writer/communicator, has happened to me, and I think happens to a lot of technical communicators these days. We contribute ideas and work for what we do, and don’t get the fair credit or compensation for it. How many times have I done “tests” for companies only to not get the job or hear back from them? Yeah, unfortunately it seems, based on Carrie Fisher’s comments, that it’s not only for technical writers, but script writers as well.

Carrie Fisher was incredibly human–she wasn’t afraid to show her vulnerabilities, and we loved her for it. She definitely knew, by the end of her life, that she had a lot of worth as a person of many talents, and she used them. She will definitely be missed by this geek mom.

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John E. McIntyre’s trigger warning about taking his editing class- Baltimore Sun

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Take a seat, school’s back in session. Here’s John E. McIntyre’s “trigger warning” to new students at his editing class at Loyola University Maryland.

Source: John E. McIntyre’s trigger warning – Baltimore Sun

I highly, highly encourage you to watch the video in this link, especially if you’ve ever taken an editing class.  This reminded me SO much of what I had to go through in the technical editing course that I took at NJIT with Dr. Norbert Elliot.  He’s retired now, but his lessons definitely live on! I showed this to one of my classmates from the class, and she said this was exactly how she imagined Dr. Elliot in her imagination, but with a different appearance, naturally.  I spent many weekends and weeknight pouring over texts. Our usual assignment would center on a particular common grammatical error, such as the use of commas. We’d be provided eight to ten sentences, which we would not only edit, but we had to give citations from various grammar rule books–such as the Chicago Manual of Style–and explain WHY it was wrong. It was NOT an easy class by any means, but I eeked out an A, and it was one of the first grades I received in grad school.

Did you have an editing class that was similar to what this gentleman was teaching or what I experienced? Did it help you as a technical communicator (I know it helped me!)? Share your experiences in the comments below.

–TechCommGeekMom

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The Double Vocabulary of English | Mental Floss

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Why does English have so many words that have twins? Here’s how we got to have two vocabularies, one based in Germanic roots, and one based in Latin.

Source: The Double Vocabulary of English | Mental Floss

As someone who thinks that she missed her calling by not studying and getting degrees in linguistics, I find this a fascinating little five minute video history of why English has more than one word for many verbs and nouns.  It’s said that English is complicated because of instances like this, but perhaps it’s actually richer for it.

What do you think of this video? Include your comments below.

–TechCommGeekMom