Writing Services

Writing Services

We provide English language business and technical writing assistance and in some cases might be able to provide support in other languages.   Please let us know what you need and we’ll get right back to you.  If we can’t provide direct help we’ll do what we can to find another organization or consultant that can be of assistance.

Business and Technical Writing

A common thread across most writing activities is being able to communicate in concise and simple to understand ways.  The need for good written documentation spans industries and disciplines.  From business plan writing, sales collateral, technical writing to email campaigns – the quality of the written documentation often plays a huge role in determining the effectiveness of the activity.  In business terms, complete and well written documentation directly translates to profitability.

Different writing styles and approaches are appropriate depending on the target reader.  A sales brochure for consumer electronic products is written in a completely different way than a complete business plan targeting the business investor community.  Technical writing targeting corporate system engineers will be written in the language familiar to them (technical jargon).  A university thesis will target the educational community as well as professionals in the given area of study.  Writing types we often work with include business plans, marketing and sales literature, technical writing, and educational.   Each is described in more detail below.

Business Plans

Business plans are special documents used for the planning and monitoring of a business.  They are often used as tools for obtaining loans and/or investment funding for a company, although strictly speaking, this should be their secondary role.  In-depth knowledge of the relevant products or services, competition, market factors, marketing plans, internal resources, sales projections, and complete financial information are just a few of the areas that need to be well understood.  A consultant can be quite helpful for teams not experienced in complete business planning to ensure that all the basic areas are covered.  This includes proper financial modeling of the business.

Marketing and Sales Literature

Sales writing is directed towards the customer of the business.  This goes for direct sales letters (either print or email) as well as brochures or any other written correspondence.  In the case of letters and email, the message must be direct and personal, as well as simple and to the point.  Key selling points directly related to the buying decision must be made obvious, and a sense of urgency established.  Other sales collateral, such as brochures or data sheets, are focused on providing the customer with enough product information to make a knowledgeable buying decision.  They must be complete and accurate.  Inaccurate or incomplete information can often result in a poor impression of the company in the eyes of the customer, hurting the sales process rather than helping.

Technical Writing

Technical writing has been a constant part of many of the projects we have been involved with.  We’ve worked with technology companies producing internal technical documentation, user manuals, release notes, white papers, and sales literature.  Most of this work required not only proper writing skills but also the engineering expertise to understand what was being written.  Some of the resulting documents can be found at the bottom of this page.

Educational

Local universities and secondary schools often require detailed material be prepared in English.  This can range from school papers to thesis work.  While we do not provide research assistance for such projects (students are always responsible for their own work), we can help in formulating and organizing ideas and the conveyance of these into written documents.   This is similar in nature to copy editing (described below) with the exception that the process is done hand in hand with the student.  We may also be able to help in developing and documenting teaching plans for certain types of courses.

Copy Editing

Copy editing is the task of taking existing draft documents and improving them for the purpose of eventual publication.  Copy editing generally does not result in any material changes in content, but focuses on formatting, style, language use, and grammar.  This is extremely important for documents that undergo translation by someone not intimately familiar with the subject material or whose language skills are not native.  Typical examples are website content, product manuals, sales literature, and email correspondence.

Sample Documents

Online Manuals and Tutorials (Teachers Network – 2020)

All public site content for the new Teachers Network collaborative authoring site including the How-To guides (listed below).  This is a work in progress with additional material to be introduced through 2020.  The target audience for these guides are professional teachers in English speaking countries.

Network Management Tutorials and Papers (2014)

These technical papers are a bit dated but a good reflection on technical writing style.  The papers are specific to and older version of the Zabbix Network Management system.   The complete index of all documents being worked on is at Tim’s Zabbix Tutorials, Whitepapers, and other Resources.  Note that the Zabbix papers document an older version (2.x) of the network management platform and are in need of revising.

User Manuals, Release Notes and White Papers

Documents provided here are from the work done with International Messaging Associates.  The IMA products were designed for technical datacenter managers, and were written with them in mind. Additional documents can be found on the IMA Archive Site.  The format of this site is quite dated but has a good document archive.

Sales Documentation

The material below was used as sales collateral to be sent to prospective customers:

Other

A small project done for a Macau customer: