The Newsletter for the Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication The Quill October 2001 Volume 13 Number 2 www.stc.waterloo.on.ca Become a Sustaining Organization Member Goldie, where are you when I need you? Some organizations that have invested in the future of the profession and become sustaining members: by Ted Edwins, President October is membership month and to celebrate, the Society will tack on the rest of 2001 to your 2002 membership for new members. Unlike a public television huckster, who teases you with the upcoming conclusion to your favourite Monty Python episode, while attempting to part you from some hard earned loonies, even though you know there isn't going to be anything as good on the channel until the next pledge drive, by which time you'll have gone as blind as a kat, staring at the boob tube while you eat your cold spam, spam, eggs, and spam washed down with some warm Whatney's Red Barrel, I am not going to drone on and on about the benefits of membership. What I am going to do is encourage you to ask your organization to become a sustaining member. By becoming a sustaining organization member, a company can support professional activities in the field of technical communication while enjoying the benefits of a tax deduction. Sustaining organizations of the Society represent all facets of technical communication. Your organization will have an active voice in the affairs of the Society through one of your organization's employees. The sustaining organization representative has all the rights and privileges of an individual member, including the right to run for elective office and vote in elections. The sustaining organization representative receives: discounts on STC's annual conference group rate insurance Intercom -- STC's monthly magazine mailings from the local chapter -- meeting announcements and newsletters Special Interest Groups Technical Communication -- STC's quarterly journal. Your organization also receives a handsome, individually struck plaque designating your organization as a sustaining organization of the world's leading professional technical communication group -- STC. What Are Sustaining Organization Dues? An investment of $500 annually will bring your company the many benefits of sustaining organization status in STC. Your contribution is tax deductible because STC is recognized as an educational organization. In addition, a portion of your annual sustaining organization contribution will be returned to your local chapter and used to further technical communication in your area. How to Become a Sustaining Organization You can download the Sustaining Organization Brochure and Enrollment Form from the Society website at http://www.stc.org/sustaining.html. If you have any questions about membership, individual or sustaining, please contact our Membership Manager, Carrie Spira, at [email protected]. × Algonquin College Tech. Writer Program Lexmark International, Inc. Allen-Bradley Co., Inc. Mobil Business Resources Corporation NEC Corporation Australian Centre Unisys Software (ACUS) Novell Software Development India, Ltd. The Boeing Company Novell, Inc., Developer Information Caterpillar Inc. CYBERTEK Corp. Federal Express Corp. Ricoh Co., Ltd. Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Siemens AG, Amberg Sony Corp. Texas Instruments India Ltd. Hitachi, Technical Communication IBM Corp., Thomas J. Watson Research Center J.D. Edwards Contents Adventures in Documentation ..... 2 October is Membership Month .... 3 November General Meeting ......... 3 Gordon & Gordon Workshops ..... 4 Volunteering the STC Way ........... 4 Mentoring the Mentors ................ 5 Low Cost Single Sourcing ............ 5 Putting Our Chapter on the Map . 6 Council Meeting Recap ............... 6 Word Puzzles ............................. 7 Adventures in Documentation Arguments for a paperless environment Body Parts – the 1940’s Taken from From Flappers to Rappers, by By Tom Dalzell Jive-inspired youth slang of the 1940s had a prodigious vocabulary to describe parts of the body (the frame), based on the function STCmany Membership of the body part. No other decade Directory Onlineslang can point to now an anatomical anywhere even vaguely as extensive as that of the 1940s. Starting from the head and working down to the toes: Hair Hair: brush (a mustache), face lace (whiskers), moss. The head: biscuit, dome, idea pot, noggin and think-box The face: index, knob (an ugly face), map, phiz, puss. Eyes Eyes: blinkers, lamps, pies, shutters (eye-lids), slanters, spotters. Ears: flippers, flops, lugs (large ears), mikes, sails. The nose: handle (a large nose), horn, schnozz, sneezer. The mouth and environs: bone box (mouth), chewers (teeth), chops (jaws), choppers (teeth), crumb crunchers (teeth), snags (tonsils). The neck: stretcher. Shoulders and arms: brace o’ broads (shoulders), brace o’ hookers (arms), floppers (arms), hinges (elbows). Hands: dukes (fists), grabbers, meat hooks, paddlers, paws. Fingers: feelers, fish hooks, forks, hooks, pickers, stealers, wigglers. The chest, abdomen and contents: bread basket (stomach), clocker (heart), pail (stomach), pump (heart), ticker (heart). Legs: drumsticks, pillars, prayer dukes (knees), splits, stems, stumps, uprights. Feet: hocks, plates. Toes: ten (as in-it’s good to have ten). 2 by Opal Gamble Over the next few months we will be featuring a serialized article on the benefits of online documentation. Opal’s argument against paper considers intertexuality, delivery and update cycles, costs, the ‘wow’ factor, resistance, waste, and technology. Opal has had a lot of experience designing, and implementing online documentation solutions for several local companies. The great paper debate has raged for years. Paper is tangible. Solid. There’s something about it that makes you feel like you’ve gotten your money’s worth. You can make notes in the margins; dog-ear pages you use frequently; highlight important information. There’s something reassuring about having that two-inch thick Windows manual perched on your shelf, even if you do go out of your way to avoid reading it. And even in our pixel-based world, paper still rules. According to an article in National Post BUSINESS, paper consumption has grown significantly in our “paperless” work environment: paper sales increase at 4—5% a year. (Phelps 21) So, considering our society’s obvious obsession with paper and the clear advantages of paper documentation, why are technical communicators moving away from hard copy manuals? It just seems to go against the target market’s preferences and against the predictions of many STC bigwigs. All in Favour Say Aye The shift makes much more sense in relation to the Internet’s growing influence. When even the most technically uninspired employee can hook up a modem and wheel-and-deal on eBay, the advantages of point and click online help become more apparent. Online help systems: ease intertextuality speed up the delivery cycle speed up the update cycle cost less—eventually possess inherent ‘wow’ appeal. Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of online help in relation to hardcopy documentation. Intertextuality Traditional manuals often contain references to other manuals or to other sections within that manual. The Quill 13:2 Oct 01 The reader has to flip through several pages to get to the table of contents for a chapter, and then another 40 pages to get to the actual topic. It’s not really a good way to encourage your reader to continue to the next step. It is nightmarish task for the writer, even with the functionality built into Microsoft Word to ease the process. This is where online help has a distinct advantage. One click puts readers at the next step, regardless of the actual distance between the two topics in the table of contents. If readers decide that the topic is not what they want to read, one click of the browser’s Back button returns them to the previous topic. Maintenance of an online system is very, very simple for the writer. As long as the HTML page name and file structure remains the same, the link stays valid. And many HTML help authoring systems automatically update the links if you change the file name. Assuming, of course, that you change the name within the authoring environment. Delivery and Update Cycles The time it takes to write a manual is pretty consistent. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing an online help system or a plain vanilla manual. What counts is the time that elapses from the time the manual leaves your computer and arrives, finally, on the user’s desk. Printing takes time. A manual needs to be sent carefully to a printer (don’t forget your fonts!), set, approved, printed, bound, and shipped. And then you’ve still got to send it to your user. The same 1000 page manual takes less than 3 minutes to compile into a customer-ready online help system. Fixing a typo or a technical mistake that slipped by your SME is often a major chore for hardcopy documentation; major mistakes might go uncorrected because a manual has gone to print. Online documentation enables a quick fix, even if the manual has already shipped to the customer. How? Well, with a hardcopy manual, you have to have the manual reprinted, and rebound. An online system, however, enables you to make changes to a single page. Continued on Page 7. STC SIGs October is Membership Month The Southwestern Ontario Chapter Welcomes You The Flapper Intoxicated by Carrie Spira, Membership Manager If you’re not already a member of the STC, consider becoming a member NOW! When you join the STC on or after October 1st, you receive the rest of this year free. Membership has its privileges, including: discounts on the STC’s annual conference Intercom — the STC’s monthly magazine association group rate insurance mailings from our local chapter such as our award-winning newsletter, The Quill special Interest groups online competition entry fee discounts employment help with resumes and cover letters local professional development workshop entry fee discounts. To learn more about the many membership benefits available and download (or fill out online) a membership application form, visit the STC website at www.stc.org. Renewing Your STC Membership Your STC membership runs from January 1st to December 31st. Annual membership fees are due and payable on January 31st. The STC office will send renewal notices in late November to all current STC members. All unpaid members receive reminder notices in early February, and then final notices if they have not renewed by February 28th. Members can still renew their memberships after February 28th, however, these memberships are only good through December 31st of that year. For instance, if an inactive member did not renew by February but renewed in August, the membership is only good through December 31 and the member is listed as a renewed member, not a reinstated member. If you joined the STC on or after July 1st and before October 1st of this year, you will receive a 50% credit toward next year’s dues. Help Spread the Word You can help build our chapter’s membership base by spreading the word about the STC and our chapter. You can: Invite potential members to our monthly general meetings. General meetings are always free and open to everyone. There is no obligation to join the STC by attending general meetings. Share a copy of The Quill with a colleague, coworker, or friend. Pass The Quill around work by leaving it in a lunchroom, meeting room, or Reception area. Talk to people about the STC, its mission, and its function. Invite potential members or people interested in the STC to our chapter website: www.stc.waterloo.on.ca and to the main STC website: www.stc.org. For more information, or to share ideas on how to attract new members, contact Carrie Spira at [email protected]. × November General Meeting Learning from experience by Shannon Hilker, Program Manager Plan to attend the next general meeting November 6th, when we’ll have Jeff Roach speaking with us. Jeff Roach has aggressively pursued digital design communications as an ebusiness consultant with Canadian communications firms including Harvest Design and JWA. He is also a Certified Advertising Agency Practioner through the Institute of Canadian Advertising. Jeff is the President and Creative Director of Build Interactive where he concentrates on helping corporations develop integrated brand marketing strategies via the Web. Jeff has been involved in Internet design and development since 1994 and has acted as a consultant and project manager of over 1,000 internet marketing projects in the past seven years. Jeff’s experience as a marketer as well as his past positions as Graphic Designer, Internet Designer, Art Director, Copywriter, Production Manager, Media Director and Account Planner allow him to fully understand every element of developing an effective e-marketing strategy and deploying e-marketing tactics that work. Bar none, no adjective has commanded more slang synonyms over the ages than “intoxicated.” Despite the 18th Amendment and its novel approach of augmenting the Constitution to limit, not protect, a right, the consumption of alcohol to the point of inebriation as a quest of the young was alive and well in the 1920s. To the Flapper, alcohol was hooch, a giggle water or hooch consciously slangy word (derived from the name of an Alaskan Indian tribe, the Hoochinoo, involved in the production and transportation of bootleg liquor) that was not confined in usage to the Flapper; to lap was to drink, most often at a gin mill (speakeasy). To be half-cut or soaked with a bar rag was to be pleasantly tipsy, while Flapper slang to describe the state of fullblown alcohol intoxication included barreled, bolognied, canned, crocked, fried, jammed, jiggered, juiced, oiled, ossified, out like a light, pie-eyed, piffled, plastered, polluted, potted, shellacked, shot, splifficated, stewed to the hat, and tanked tanked. A Flapper who could hold her liquor was a nonskid skid; a hip hound was a serious drinker; a drunken goof was a flask flask, and an apple alley was a drunk sailor. If you know someone who would make a great speaker at one of our general meetins, contact Shannon Hilker at [email protected]. × The Quill 13:2 Oct 01 3 New Yuppie Words Gordon & Gordon Workshops Hosted by STC Montreal Fat or Slim? The Healthy Weight Journal and the National Council Against Health Fraud announce their tenth annual Slim Chance Awards today. The Slim Chance Awards are designed to draw attention to what the two groups consider the worst fad diets and weight loss gimmicks. As you probably know, not an awful lot separates a slim chance and a fat chance. A slim chance is small or scanty, while a fat chance is practically nonexistent. That slang sense of fat is one of the word’s few senses that doesn’t have a close relationship to largeness or heft. Inveterate wordlovers know that our lexicon is fat with faddish synonyms for food. It’s easy to see where eats comes from, while it’s difficult to stomach the idea that the food-grub is related to the same grub that names the short, thick, wormlike larva of an insect. Victuals, spelled either “victuals” or “vittles,” comes from the Latin term for “nourishment” or “sustenance” (and which itself comes from the Latin verb meaning “to live”). The idea of tucking into a good meal inspired the noun tuck meaning “food,” especially “sweet foods,” such as pastry, jam, and candy. But the verb chowing down came after the noun chow. That word was cooked up (or should we say it’s a reduction?) from the longer chowchow . In Chinese Pidgin English chowchow means “food”; in English, chowchow refers to either a Chinese preserve with heavy syrup or a relish with mustard sauce. by Howard Kiewe STC Montreal invites you to participate in the following exciting workshops presented by Gordon & Gordon in October: Writing Brochures and White Papers Documenting APIs and SDKs Just about every high-tech company needs brochures and white papers. They need glossy brochures to create interest in their products, along with white papers that explain their technology. Speaker: Manuel Gordon Documenting SDKs isn’t easy, and it’s not for everyone. But it is a highly sought-after skill. It’s work that will earn you respect, both from other writers and from programmers. And it’s one of the best-paying gigs in our industry. Sure, it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. Why not you? Or if you’re a publications manager, why not that hotshot in your department? At this revealing 2-day workshop you will learn how to work with software developers to create useful documentation for application programming interfaces and software development kits. When? Monday, October 22 and Tuesday, October 23, 2001from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM So there’s lots of work out there writing these materials. The only problem is: there are no rules to follow and no standards to refer to. This workshop introduces these two common marketing materials, with real-world examples and guidelines on how to create each type. The exercises involve analyzing, planning, and writing sample brochures and white papers. When? Friday, October 26, 2001 from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM Where? At the Maritime Plaza Hotel, Montreal 1155 Guy (corner of René-Lévesque STC members receive a 10% discount, and an additional early registration discount of 5% if they sign up before September 21. For more information or to register, visit www.gordonandgordon.com. You can also contact the workshop coordinator, Lysanne Gagnon, through email at [email protected] or phone at 450-628-7540. × Where? At the Maritime Plaza Hotel, Montrea 1155 Guy (corner of René-Lévesque) Volunteering the STC Way Your time and skills can make a difference by Lori Shantz The STC Southwestern Ontario Volunteer Committee is looking to match skilled volunteers to community organizations that need the expertise of technical communicators in the following areas: Writing Editing Design and graphics Database management Web design and management Community Benefits With very little resources available, community organizations rely on volunteers to help with everything from creating brochures, newsletters, and marketing materials, to providing advice for design and web issues. They benefit considerably from the contributions of knowledgeable professionals, and the free help is greatly appreciated! STC Member Benefits For novice technical communicators, volunteering provides valuable work experience 4 Speaker: Gordon Graham The Quill 13:2 Oct 01 and portfolio material. For intermediate technical communicators, it can provide the creative output you’ve been longing for. And for senior technical communicators, volunteering in a mentoring capacity or editing the work of an inexperienced technical communicator develops valuable management skills. Regardless of experience, volunteering looks good on your resume and raises awareness of the STC! The Volunteer Committee is looking for technical communicators of all experience levels who are willing to share their time and skills with a not-forprofit community organization. You don’t have to commit to a huge amount of time, even a couple of hours a month makes a difference. For more information on volunteer possibilities with the STC Southwestern Ontario, please send an email expressing your interest to Lori Shantz ([email protected]). She’ll carefully match your skills and interests with those needed by a local organization. × Mentoring the Mentors The Management SIG by Catherine McNair Pamela Rand, Documentation group manager at a large tech company, has to find ways to cut expenses. Significantly cut expenses. She’d love to do it without layoffs—but is that possible? Dominique Disario has had a good day. Her Documentation team not only met the deadline, but they did it with time to spare, and with little overtime. Such an improvement over the chaos and stress of trying to meet deadlines when she first became manager. She’d love to share what she has learned. Robert Chomsky is at his wit’s end. The tension between the two other writers he works with reached a head today, ending in tears. As senior writer of the group, he feels he should do something. But the whole situation makes him so uncomfortable. Need advice? Have advice? If you’re an STC member who is also a manager or a senior writer, and you can relate to the situations above (all fictitious), or others like them, the Management SIG might be for you. Personnel, budgets, schedules, mentoring, work processes, office politics—these sorts of issues all fall under the umbrella of what gets discussed at Management SIG meetings. To protect the privacy of those we work with, meeting minutes are never taken, and participants avoid referring to specific individuals by name (or by other distinguishing characteristics). Meetings are arranged via email, but discussions are not held that way. Think you might be interested? Want to find out more? You can check out the Management SIG page at www.stc.waterloo.on.ca/chapterinfo/managementsig.htm or get in touch with me at [email protected]. No extra fee is required, and you can participate as much or as little as you like. × Low Cost Single Sourcing One company’s success story by Susie Simon-Daniels On Tuesday, September 4, the Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the STC welcomed Tim Grantham to speak on single-sourcing. The goal of single-sourcing is to devise a method where one piece of information or one set of instructions is repurposed in various documents—whether paper or online. Tim, supervisor of documentation and training for CRS Robotics Corporation, shared his experiences of when his company adopted a single-source approach to its documentation. CRS manufactures various robotics including robotic arms used in DNA research in science labs. CSR employs about 100 people and, at the beginning of the project, just one technical writer—Tim. While he lobbied for the importance of single-source methodology, Tim faced the usual challenges: not enough time, not enough people, not enough money. When he arrived on the job, Tim inherited dozens of documents written in Microsoft Word that were already out-of-date. He knew had to find a better way because no one person could manage that many rapidly changing documents. After developing a business case, influencing the stakeholders and at one point threatening to quit, Tim succeeded in convincing CSR to adopt a single-source methodology. Tim and his team (as it blossomed from one to more than one) chose to author in Adobe FrameMaker, use Quadralay WebWorks Publisher 2000 to produce HTML and WebHelp and then Adobe Acrobat to produce PDFs. Next, they separated common content (such as installation instructions, safety messages, the glossary, and so on) from content that varied from robot to robot (such as hardware diagrams and maintenance information). In very simple terms, Tim structured one document with the common text and then, using FrameMaker’s conditional text feature, inserted the appropriate text and images depending on the equipment that Tim was documenting. One model of a robotic arm had essentially the same manual as another model of a robotic except for those chunks of conditional text and images. Once the document was assembled in FrameMaker, Tim ported it to print, online (Quadralay WebWorks Publisher) and PDF (Adobe Acrobat). Tim shares these lessons learned. Single-sourcing: lowers on-going maintenance costs allows for flexible output to multiple media permits customized publishing sets the stage for transition to XML/SGML requires documents designed for different media requires a good knowledge of all the tools in use. You can’t not like this... A not unfunny anecdote about teaching English grammar goes like this: a teacher explains that two negatives cancel each other out and make a meaning positive, not negative. For example, when a person says I don’t have no money, he or she is truly saying they do have money. The teacher concludes the lesson by noting that two positives don’t have the same effect; that is, two positives don’t make a negative. That’s when a student in the back row pipes up with a sardonic yeah, right. Just as the student’s remark illustrates that sometimes two positives can make a negative, today we offer a different (and more positive) perspective on the place of the double, or multiple, negative. We begin by admitting that the double negative is not a prestige form. It won’t impress the boss or the in-laws. But the construction does serve two important functions: it can be a weak affirmative, an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary (such as when we termed our anecdote not unfunny ). And the multiple negative also acts as an emphatic negative, as in our I don’t have no money example. Writers from William Shakespeare to William Faulkner have applied the multiple negative to great effect, and the construction predates Chaucer. But after grammarians began applying the rules of Latin grammar to English in the 18th century, the disowned (and already disappearing) usage became associated with the speech of less-educated folks. Taken from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. Tim’s experience is proof that you need not invest hundreds of thousands of dollars for an enterprise solution to single-source. Anyone can do it with careful planning, excellent knowledge of the tools you use and a solid understanding of your content. The meeting officially ended with Tim drawing a winner for the door prize. However, many folks lingered for refreshments and conversation while council members drummed up support for the Technical Communications Competition. × The Quill 13:2 Oct 01 5 Job Ad Translations Putting Our Chapter on the Map Please welcome our new council member Can you translate the following? These are all common clichés, sayings or other things you have heard before. The answers are on the sidebar of Pade 7. 1. Scintillate, scintillate, diminutive luminous mass. 2. Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate. 3. Surveillance should preceded saltation. 4. Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity. 5. It is fruitless to become lachrymose over lacteal fluid that is inadvertently flowing and hence forfeited. 6. Freedom from incrustation of grim is preceded in paramount only by rectitude. 7. It is fatuous to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers. 8. All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. 9. Finicalness on the part of mendicants is interdicted. 10. A plethora of those with culinary expertise vitiated the potable substance produced by decocting certain comestibles. 11. Eleemosynary deeds have their incipience intramurally. by Debbie Kerr, Public Relations Manager Hi everyone! My name is Debbie Kerr, and I am the new Public Relations Manager for the Southwestern Ontario Chapter. e-mails, posters, and ads in newspapers, one of the most effective methods will still be word of mouth. I am a senior member of the STC, and I wrote my first manual in 1982 for the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Since then, I have worked for places like IBM Canada, Ministry of Revenue, Ministry of Transportation, Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), and Kmart Canada. For the last five years, I have worked for MDR Switchview, which produces the software and provides the services that help companies to reduce their telecom and data network costs. In fact, you all can be public relations managers for the STC, the Southwestern Ontario Chapter, and the entire technical communication profession. Talk about your profession to others. Include Technical Communication as a career choice when your children ask what they can be when they grow up. Participate in career days or job shadowing. Be proud of what you do! In addition to my “paying job”, my job as our chapter’s Public Relations Manager is to get the word out. While some of this will be accomplished using Web postings, If you have any other ideas about how to get the word out, you can either reach me at [email protected] or at (519) 746-4460 ext. 725. × Council Meetings Council 2 by Opal Gamble, Co-recorder During a very efficient and prompt meeting at Campana Systems, the council discussed: Treasury George has the chapter finances well contained, and requests that all portfolio managers contact him by the next council meeting to confirm his Karen says that the competition planning is going well; those interested in participating in estimated budget for this year. If you need a copy the competition should submit entries to RIM by of the preliminary budget, contact George. October 3, care of Yvonne. The judge training Miscellaneous day date will be announced shortly (according Ted raised some issues about advertising for a to the chapter website, the training day is company that currently provides Canadian STC Saturday, October 27). members with disability insurance. Council members made a few suggestions about Program appropriate methods of advertising the service. Shannon is working on a progression for a general meeting. Anyone who is willing to be an The council agreed to place a message on the expert for the night and speak about an chapter home page expressing our condolences to authoring tool should contact Shannon. those affected by the events of September 11. Competition Education Heather and Janice have narrowed the speakers down to two very tough choices. While the contenders are top secret right now, expect news about education day soon! Join us on the council And so wraps up another exciting council meeting. If you are interested in volunteering for a committee, or are willing to take on one of the remaining council positions, contact Ted Edwins at [email protected].× Get involved in the decision-making process at our monthly council meetings. This year, meetings are being held at Campana Systems Inc., 99 Randall Drive, Waterloo. When you arrive, please enter from the rear of the building. Getting there Directions from Toronto: From Hwy 401 West. take Hwy 7/8 North to Kitchener. Follow Hwy 7 East, then exit north on Hwy 86 to Waterloo. Exit on Northfield Drive and merge right. Then, turn right on Weber Street (2nd set of lights). Turn right on Randall Drive (1st street). The entrance to Campana (99 Randall Drive)is on the right, just before the railway tracks (in the Pressworks Technology Park). 6 The Quill 13:2 Oct 01 Resume Translations Word Puzzles - Test Your Vocabulary by Meredith Ballaban Are your friends and family intimidated by the words you use? Test your vocabulary by choosing a definition below. Then see if you can work these words into casual conversation. 1. Weir 5. Aegis a. Oddball a. difficulty b. Groupie b. duress c. Flexed c. religious d. Small dam d. sponsorship 2. Welter a. To whip 6. Caldera b. To wallow a. a mall c. To run away b. a type of volcano d. Primitive shelter c. deadly spider 3. Whorl d. eclipse a. Coiled form b. Wind c. Whirlpool d. Wig 4. Orismology a. Science of defining technical terms b. Branch of entomology that deals with ants c. Science of glaciers and ice caps d. Study of human action and conduct Translations (from previous side pane) 1. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. 2. Birds of a feather flock together. 3. Look before leaping. 4. Beauty is only skin deep. 5. Don’t cry over spilled milk. 6. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. 7. You can‘t teach an old dog new tricks. 8. All that glitters is not gold. 9. Beggars can’t be choosers. 10. Too many cooks spoil the soup. 11. Good deeds begin at home. Answers to Word Puzzle: 1. dSmall dam, 2. b- To wallow, 3. aCoiled form, 4. a - Science of defining technical terms. 5. d – sponsorship, 6. b- volcano. Continued from Page 2 (Adventures in Docuementation) That HTML page can then be sent to your customers, whether via email, a patch CD, or as a download from the corporate website. This ability also enables writers to keep manuals up to date at all times. If a change is made to a piece of software, the writer can update the appropriate HTML topics and recompile the online help system immediately. As a result, whoever is responsible for distributing the software and online help to customers can ensure that the most up to date version goes with the software. Join us next month when we continue this article, and uncover more interesting tidbits about online documentation. × The Quill 13:2 Oct 01 7 What is the Quill? The Quill is the official newsletter of the Southwestern Ontario chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). The Quill is published in Waterloo, Ontario monthly, except in January, July, and August, and distributed free to all local STC members. Material in this publication may be reprinted, provided the author and the Southwestern Ontario chapter of the STC are acknowledged. All readers are welcome to submit short articles, letters, and other interesting items relevant to technical communication to the editor, [email protected]. Please submit items by one week prior to the date of the general meeting. STC Southwestern Ontario Council Contacts PEOPLE for 2001-2002 The council wants you! Contact council members to volunteer now. www.stc.waterloo.on.ca President Webmaster Stephen Burke [email protected] 519.748.4575 ext 266 Student Liaison (UW) Ted Edwins [email protected] 519.822.2417 Vice-President E-mail List Manager University of Waterloo Liaison Vacant Past President Who are the Quill? Editor: Andrea Braniff Copyeditor: Margie Yundt Word Puzzles: Meredith Ballaban Print manager: Andrea Braniff Distribution: Barbara Girling Contributor: Shannon Hilker Comic Strip Artist: Vacant Contributors Ted Edwins, Opal Gamble, Carrie Spira, Shannon Hilker, Howard Kiewe, Lori Shantz, Catherine McNair, and Susie Simon-Daniels. Advertising To submit advertising, please consult with the editor, [email protected]. Advertising combining text and graphics must be supplied in graphic format. Business 1/4 page ($20 for 3 1/2 page ($30 for 3 Full page ($60 for 3 8 card $10 $30 or more issues) $40 or more issues) $80 or more issues) Lynda Baxter [email protected] 519.836.0834 Treasurer George Zador [email protected] 519.742.7984 Paul Kostiuk [email protected] 519.748.4575 ext 258 Hospitality Manager Leo Petipas [email protected] 519.744.8449 Education Committee Co-manager Opal Gamble [email protected] 519.883.0833 Paul Beam [email protected] [email protected] Volunteer Co-ordinator Lori Shantz [email protected] [email protected] 519.741.7824 Employment Manager Membership Manager Janice Hlinka [email protected] 519.747.5222 ext 302 Public Relations Manager Education Committee Co-manager Quill Editor Debbie Kerr [email protected] 519.746.4460 ext 725 Heather Martin [email protected] 519.747.5222 ext 248 Andrea Braniff [email protected] 519.747.5222 ext 277 Scholarship Manager Co-recorder Auxiliary Mailing List Co-ordinator Carrie Spira [email protected] Brian Gamble [email protected] 519.884.1710 Opal Gamble [email protected] 519.883.0833 Competition Manager Co-recorder STC Toronto Program Manager Shannon Hilker [email protected] 519.747.5222 ext 263 Terry Shantz [email protected] 519.722.4166 Student Liaison (WLU) Terry Shantz [email protected] 519.807.0710 Heidi Marr [email protected] 519.886.8816 Barb Girling [email protected] 519.893.1134 Canadian Issues Committee Representative Leanne Logan [email protected]
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