This is the first edition of the Technology Wordsmith newsletter!

My aim is to teach you how to write better technology documents.

What does “better” mean?

Better means:

• in plain English
• easy to read
• simple to understand

I worked as a professional journalist for 10 years, writing and editing documents to a deadline on a daily basis.

That taught me to – you guessed it – write easy-to-read news stories in plain English that were simple to understand.

The aim was to cater for everyone by writing something anyone could read.

The big career change

I then changed careers to technology, and was I in for a shock!

I was surrounded by loads of very smart people who knew lots of very technical details about the computer systems they were building but…

…HARDLY ANYONE COULD WRITE ABOUT THEM!

So I helped them.

I edited, and wrote, and re-edited and proofread their documents to make them understandable in plain English and easy to read.

After over 20 years in a variety of technology roles, I have realised that I have a lot of knowledge about two industries that normally don’t blend: journalism (writing) and technology.

This makes me unique: I’ve never come across any other journalist who has made the transition to a fully-fledged IT career.

This is me!

Willem Popp: Technology Wordsmith

Aside from being devilishly handsome (I am if you squint), I have a very special set of skills:

• The ability to write and edit documents at great speed, and
• An in-depth knowledge of the entire technology landscape.

What’s more, I have been blending these two areas of expertise on a daily basis for the past 20 years.

I do it unconsciously … and fast: so much so that its second nature.

My aim with this weekly newsletter is to share my knowledge to help everyone in technology – and beyond – write better technology documents that are:

• In plain English
• easy to read, and
• simple to understand

On that note, and without further ado, read on for my first offering.

Enjoy!

Love your dictionary

I’m going to start with some essential advice about how to improve your writing: by improving your vocabulary.

This might seem a bit simple, but you must get the basics right!

Part 1: Spelling

For years, I was a terrible speller.

Both my parents came from non-English speaking countries, as did the parents of most of my school friends: Greece, Germany, Italy, Malta, and so on.

My high school was in a “disadvantaged” part of the city where the emphasis was on keeping us off the streets and out of school.

Learning English, and how to spell, was not a high priority.

“Who cares about spelling anyway?”

Or so I thought until I got to university and nearly failed an essay because of my (lack of) spelling.

I protested!  “I went to a terrible school,” I wailed.

“My parents don’t speak good English. No-one helped me to learn to spell.”

My lecturer was unmoving.

“Tough life”, he said. “But if you don’t care, why should anyone else?”

I realised then that if I didn’t learn to spell, it would hold me back for the rest of my life.

From that day forward, I changed my approach to spelling, and the results have been outstanding.

So what did I do?

I bought a pocket notepad and jotted down every word I couldn’t spell, pronounce, or fully understand that I came across throughout the day.

At night, I cracked open my dictionary (this was before the Internet, so it was a physical book).

I looked up the word and memorised the spelling.

To make sure the word stuck in my memory, I noted down the main meaning, as well as any other key meanings.

Yes, many words, in fact, most words have more than one meaning. Learning a few of these was an unexpected but ultimately very valuable additional benefit from my new nightly routine.

Part 2: Pronunciation

But, learning what a word meant and how to spell it was only half the battle.

I needed to learn how to say it… how to pronounce it properly.

So I pulled the word apart, looked up the phonetic icons (those odd-looking letters) that taught you how to pronounce each syllable and slowly pieced the word back together as I learned how to correctly pronounce each part of it.

Over time I became so familiar with the phonetic icons in the dictionary that I could run through the pronunciation without looking up the icons.

Do this for every new word, and before you know it, you’ll be a master of English!

Tip 3: Understand word forms

So was the word a noun or a verb? Or an adverb or an adjective?

All words can be divided into a “word form” that describes its function in speech.

Nouns are things; verbs are actions, and so on.

It’s not critical, but it helps if you know this about the word you are looking up, so take a moment to make a mental note about whether it’s a noun, a verb, or something else.

And be wary: some words can perform more than one function, so have more than one word form.  Have some fun teaching yourself the difference between them.

Tip 4: Learn etymology

The final part and the part I learned the most from.

What is the etymology of the word?

Its a big word: etymology. But its simply the source of the word.

Where did it come from? Old English, French, Latin or something else?

You will also see how words are formed over time as they have morphed and changed throughout the centuries.

These simple history lessons will help you build your vocabulary as you begin to see the patterns in different words that you use every day.

The Outcome

Day after day, I followed this routine over my entire university career.

I slowly built up my word list (my vocabulary) as I learned how to spell and the meaning of hundreds of words each month.

This simple act has paid dividends time and time again as I progressed through my journalism career and into IT consulting.

I am rarely lost for words (pardon the pun) and can write over 800 words per hour without missing a beat.

I am so grateful to that lecturer for putting me on this path. A path that has served me so well for so many years and is now leading me to a new career helping others write better plain English documents.

A path that has made me the best and only Technology Wordsmith in the world!

TL:DR

To recap:

1. Look up every new word in a dictionary (www.dictionary.com or just Google it)
2. Remember the spelling and meaning
3. Learn to prononce it properly
4. Note whether its a verb, noun or another word form. What’s the difference between them?
5. And (optional) take a mini-history lesson and read the word’s history (its etymology).

How can I help you?

If you need help writing plain English technology documents, get in touch with me to see how I can help.

I am “open for business” and available right now to help you write easy-to-read, plain English and simple-to-understand documents.

Click on the link below to be added to my email list.