Plain Language Awards

Celebrate the stories of our clearest business communicators

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Technical communicators keep the wheels turning with clear communications. Now’s your time to shine! | Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash


Accomplished technical communicators are often the unsung heroes of their organisation. They produce the content that makes the wheels go round — sometimes literally!

If this feels like a familiar scenario, or you’ve produced technical information you’re particularly proud of, now is your time to shine. Enter the award for Best Plain Language Technical Communicator — the judges are very keen to hear from you!

As Louise Eades, a previous category winner, said on winning Best Technical Communicator:

Technical communication is a job where less is more and simpler is better. If your reader has to search the internet for the meaning of a word, or read a sentence three times to understand it, you’ve failed.

Technical communication is finally getting the recognition it deserves as a skilled and valuable profession. Anyone can write, but not everyone can clearly communicate technical stuff to the people who need to understand it.

With that approach in mind, here are some ideas to get you thinking about what you could include in your entry.

Tell us about your clear procedures

Tell us about the new procedures you’ve written, so that essential work can continue. Those procedures and operating instructions are so clear and easy to use that your colleagues can carry out complex activities without missing a beat.

Tell us about your user-friendly online help

Tell us about the chunks of online help files you’ve rewritten, so that customers can find answers to their questions easily. You’ve created them using clear structure and language to support your whole customer base, with its diverse language and educational backgrounds.

Tell us about your new technical specifications

Tell us about the new technical specifications or instructions that you’ve developed in double-quick time for your company’s new products. Maybe you wrote them while grappling with MadCap Flare or FrameMaker, and collaborating in Confluence too!

Show us what you’ve done as an expert technical communicator

The judges are keen to see a representative portfolio of your work, so you can send in up to five samples. Tell us the context of your documents, including their purpose and audience. The judges also recommend you showcase your plain language skills by including samples that highlight excellent structure and layout.

Read more about the Best Plain Language Technical Communicator category


Need more encouragement to enter?

Check out this fun video!

TechCommNZ’s 10 reasons to enter the 2022 Plain Language Awards


Meet the category sponsor for Best Plain Language Technical Communicator

We’re delighted that once again our long-term sponsor TechCommNZ is getting behind this award. Thanks TechCommNZ — we couldn’t do it without you!

Find out more about TechCommNZ


 

Posted In: 2022 Plain Language Awards, Best Technical Communicator

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Lots of people work behind the scenes to make technical communication work well | Image by Wilfried Pohnke from Pixabay


Thanks to Write consultant and technical communicator Earnsy Liu for this blog post

2020 was a long year. The world was on tenterhooks, wondering how long COVID-19 would be around. Everyone hunkered down, made sourdough bread, and hoarded toilet paper. People got used to life on Zoom, and sometimes discovered cat filters the hard way.

Some workplaces changed tack completely and manufactured new products or offered new services. Other workplaces kept doing what they always did, but in different ways.


Your chance to get the recognition you deserve

Whichever category your workplace fell into, you probably did something differently. If you wrote any technical information you’re particularly proud of, the Awards judges want to hear from you.

Tell us about your clear procedures

Tell us about the new procedures you wrote, so that essential work could continue — safely distanced — through the pandemic. Procedures so clear and easy to use, that your colleagues could carry out complex procedures without missing a beat.

Tell us about your user-friendly online help

Tell us about the chunks of online help files you rewrote, so that non-techy customers could find answers to techy questions easily. Super easily, even though your customers came from diverse language and educational backgrounds.

Tell us about your new technical specifications

Tell us about the new technical specifications or instructions that you developed for your company’s new products in double-quick time. Maybe you wrote them while grappling with MadCap Flare or Framemaker, and collaborating for the first time in Confluence too!

Show us what you’ve done as an expert technical communicator

Send in up to five samples of your work. Showcase your plain language skills (hint: pick samples that show off your structure and layout too).

Tell us the context of your documents, including their purpose and audience.

Read more about our Best Plain English Technical Communicator category


Need more encouragement to enter?

Check out silver sponsor TechCommNZ’s fun video ‘10 reasons to enter the 2021 Plain English Awards’ in our gallery.

View TechCommNZ’s video


Posted In: 2021 Plain English Awards, Best Technical Communicator, Plain English Awards

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