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Bibliography
This document lists a selection of articles, chapters, and books by Edmond H. Weiss.
Improving Clinical Procedures/Protocols with Structured Prose
In clinical procedures and protocols, paragraphs are a problem. Although they save space, they result in unreadable, error-prone instructions—which can undermine research trials and even injure subjects.
Technical Writing across Cultures: Seven Philosophical Questions
Are there universals of communication? Is any writing unambiguous? Is it possible to translate across language cultures? Is it moral to use understanding of cultures to sell products? Is cultural analysis a form of stereotyping? Is adapting to another culture a form of condescension? Must we be postmodern?
Egoless Writing: Improving Quality by Replacing Artistic Impulse with Engineering Discipline
Writing user documentation is no longer a literary or creative exercise. Well made manuals are collaborative projects, extracted from document databases, assembled according to well-understood principles of documentation. No authors, please!
Gender and Cultural Variables in Management Education: Should We Teach Women to Interrupt?
Should North American women be taught to communicate like North American men? Or, rather, does the style of communication stereotypically associated with female speech actually provide a better model in the era of international business?
Improving International Communication through the Containment of Prose Paragraphs
Tables, charts, and diagrams are nearly always more readable and understandable than paragraphs—especially when the readers read English as their second or third language.
Maxims of User Documentation: Lessons from the Past Twenty Five Years
User documentation has changed in the past two decades? What have the members of the profession learned?
Technical Writing and the Odor of Mendacity
Even in technical writing, the suspicion persists that the central skill of the accomplished communicator is lying with impunity, making things sound truer, better, and more credible than they deserve. Even “objectivity” can mask intellectual or moral dishonesty.
Toward an International English Style: 25 Editorial Improvements
Most of the people in the world who read English as part of their work are reading it as their second or third language. This article proposes 25 editorial improvements to increase the chance that the E2 reader will be able to understand the concepts and follow the instructions.
The Metaphysics of Information Quality
When people use the word quality they invoke one of three ways of measuring that protean idea: enforcing of a long list of standards; applying a handful of guiding principles; divining some elusive or mystical property.
An Unreadable EIS is an Environmental Hazard
The function of an Environmental Impact Statement to clarify disputes, thereby supporting an intelligent debate about the consequences of a project or policy. But an unreadable, inaccessible EIS confuses the discussion and creates the impression that the authors of the report are deliberately obscuring the adverse effects.
Why Your Last Competitive Technical Proposal Failed: Ten Top Reasons
Competitive R&D proposals are not lottery tickets. It is not true that the more you write the more you win. By avoiding the errors outlined in this article, companies can learn to use their proposal resources only for those opportunities with a real chance of success.
How to Write an Unclear Instruction
Although published over 25 years ago, the problems raised in this article are still as relevant as ever. Unclear instructions—for software, programmable phones and consumer products, government forms—are a continuing threat to productivity.
The Perils of PowerPoint® OR How Not to Be Done in by Your Presentation Software
Microsoft PowerPoint is among the most versatile, ingenious, and useful programs ever developed. But used incorrectly it can stultify an audience a defeat the purposes of the presenter.
Visualizing a Procedure with Nassi-Shneiderman Charts
The N-S chart is among the most effective to explain complicated procedures, especially those involving branching decision.
Adapting Presentations for International Audiences
The first principle of effective communication is Audience Adaptation. Before taking your presentation abroad, you should explore several critical questions about the communication styles and preferences of your international audience.
Bits, Atoms, and STOP
In a digital age, authors produce data (bits) and not publications (atoms). New technology separates the author from the final information product. But there is still a case for making the author responsible for the document as received, for making the bits and the atoms isomorphic.
Craft of the Memo
A memo must be engineered for clarity and readability. Florid prose, dense paragraphs, and delayed conclusions are counterproductive.
Pricing Strategies for Competitive Proposals
Low bid does not always win. For most solicitations there is a winning price, or a winning combination of scope and price. The offering price of a proposal should be determined in early proposal planning and should then shape the technical response.
Retreat from Usability
Although it has been long established that more-usable software is more reliable and less in need of external support, software developers continue to load up their products with so many features and options that the systems become buggy and unreliable. Programs become more immense, as do their manuals, while users continue to use only a tiny subset of features.
The Roots of Poor Corporate Communication
The source of most bad corporate writing is dishonesty: an attempt to exaggerate, spin, ameliorate, and otherwise deceive readers. In general, writers who believe that perception is reality will produce unreadable and ineffective messages.
The Client is Always|Never Right
The relationship between consultants and clients is ambivalent and complex. The dynamics of business causes distrust and skepticism. A consultant who will never disagree with the client is, in the end, less a consultant than a contractor.
Why Company Writing Courses Fail
Most corporate writing courses do not improve anyone’s writing. For the company to receive a return on its training investment, it needs the right consultant (one who understands and respects the work of the students), the right content (central to the work), and the right students (those who will, in fact, advance if they become better writers). |
