David Foard - Published Author

In technical writing there’s usually more than one way to accomplish any given task.

Let’s imagine we have a MS Word document with many different paragraph styles. But how are you going to shift all section headers to right by one tab at the same time and then change their colors to red?

Find-and-Replace is a great functionality but we cannot use it here. It is possible of course to search for a particular paragraph style but you need to search them by a search word. When you locate all the headers for that particular paragraph style you cannot select them all at the same time.

To locate all the headers in the Table of Contents and then select them all at the same time would be impossible.… Continue reading Using Paragraph Styles for Global Changes in MS Word Documents

There are two main methods to launch a successful article marketing campaign. A religious insistence on the right keywords is the first method. It would not be a wrong generalization to say that most articles today are written by using such a method.

Yet that’s not there’s all to it. There is a different method to write quality articles for your marketing purposes.

The “Interest Focus” method, the second method, does not care which keywords are in fashion at the time of writing. You don’t write about what bores you to death just because the “keyword” dictates you. You write about what you love. You refuse to be browbeaten by a “popular keyword” that can change at any given moment.

You don’t start from “what’s proper” to write… Continue reading What are the Benefits of the "Interest Focus" Method of Article Marketing ?

Medical writing is a special subset of technical writing that requires familiarity with medical and pharmaceutical terminology. It is an excellent niche for those writers with a scientific background.

And within the medical writing subset, regulatory writing is another specialty that pays very well since your employers are usually pharmaceutical companies that rarely have any cash problems.

To create the appropriate documentation in order to obtain regulatory agency approval for a new drug is the chief responsibility of a regulatory writer. To market and distribute a prescription drug one needs to have the regulatory stamp of approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

There are several types of specialized documents that you’d be asked to write as a regulatory writer. Here are the two most… Continue reading A Medical Writing Specialty that Can Put a Lot of Money in Your Pocket - Regulatory Writing

Sometimes a company would provide design specs telling a technical writer how exactly to design a cover.

But what if you were freelancer or an office worker who was asked to write a corporate design guideline?

Here are seven time-tested design recommendations culled from my 20 years of experience as a professional writer, page layout and information designer:

1) Keep it simple. Limit your design elements to the following components:

a) Title b) Product/Service photo or image c) Company logo d) Footer

2) The cover should include (if applicable) version or release number, as well as the document number.

3) Footer should include date of release, copyright and confidentiality (if any) information.

4) Leave as much white space as possible for the eyes to rest. Remember the principle… Continue reading 7 Recommendations for Designing a User-Friendly Document Cover for Technical Writers