ABSTRACT
What might this book contribute to the many excellent (and already written)
works dedicated to reading and writing for digital media? Perhaps it can provide
solutions to some of the apparent paradoxes I find in the profession. Over the
past five years, I have surveyed more than one hundred working technical writers
and editors, seeking to understand how well they grasped the processes for
evaluating written texts in digital environments. As one part of the study, I have
the participants evaluate a very simple website with four pages manifesting
several egregious writing errors. In only a few cases did any professional writers
recognize that any of the pages had any writing problems. Four writers recog-
nized there were problems on the pages, but only one was able to explain any of
them. The rest were unable to produce a vocabulary that permitted them to discuss
the problems in any meaningful way. In short, with the exception of one person,
100% of the professionals I have tested so far have been unable to both identify
and explain simple, but highly visible writing problems. How is it that even
professionals with years of experience seem unable to successfully evaluate
content in the simplest of websites? The purpose of this book is to explain
common problems in technical writing for digital media and present a few
possible solutions.
