The first thing must be the
term. A well-established
terminology strategy will help your product description writers avoid
ambiguity, especially if your company is implementing machine translation in a
localized workflow, which can be a tricky issue. Similarly, a
well-structured termbase will help improve the accuracy of document writing and
the reuse of content units. Don't forget to train; and user support staff
may use the same documentation as your users, so maintaining consistency will
help reduce phone calls and complaints.
There is no doubt that writing
style is also important. Information writing must be as simple as possible, but remember
not to sacrifice accuracy for simplicity. Business and technical writers
like George Orwell's six writing rules, while others like William Zissner's
classic advice. In any case, "Elements of Style" is a classic.
Different languages, different writing rules:
For example, you will find that many Italians are (almost) familiar with the
writing principles of Umberto Eco. In any case, a large number of writing
manuals are available online or through bookstores and public libraries.
Consider writing a company
document style guide. In some industries, such as the publishing and advertising
industries, there must be a style guide. This is also useful for any
organization that prepares documents for internal and external use. With a
style guide, your writers will use a specific tone and present your
business/brand in a consistent way.
Choose the creative tool that
suits your needs. There are many tools available for controlled authoring based on
your language needs. If you want to keep it simple, Microsoft Word
provides syntax syntax checking and readability ratings. Google Docs has
recently adopted similar features.
If you want to make sentences short and
effective (think Gordon Lish), or if English is not your native language, then
the Hemingway app or WriteFull can help keep your sentences simple.
For example, Acrolinx is a more complex (and
more expensive) tool. There are also a variety of tools to help you
organize your technical content. The most popular are Oxygen and Adobe
FrameMaker.
Scalability and maintainability
You must adapt the document to a variety of
media and formats. To do this, you need two basic tools.
Translation Management System
(TMS) : TMS usually
contains a glossary (again the term!). There is also a translation memory
containing source text and translated text. Translation memories will help
you re-use previously localized content (in short, you never have to translate
the same sentences), reducing overall cost and delivery time and improving
translation consistency.
Content Management System (CMS) : Be sure to consider how to link
content to different media that may publish content and connect content to a
translation management system for two-way localization. There are
specialized CMSs (designed specifically for precise types of content) and a
generic CMS, which is usually more flexible and allows for the release of
different types of content.
If
you need to localize your documents, we recommend that you choose a CMS that
can easily connect to the translation management system to speed up your
translation projects and increase their efficiency. When you connect your
CMS to TMS, translators will be able to access content to be localized and
translate in context. For example, when translating a website, they will
translate directly on the page. Then, you can post the final version to
your website (or other platform) with just a few mouse clicks. Here,You can take more helps about E learning translation services
