9 Basic English rules for professional Technical Writer

Today, everyone knows basic English and its rules. Still, we tend to miss or miss-use these basic English rules and create messy writing.

To become a professional technical writer you must mind these rules and practice accordingly. Do many self-reviews giving a good measure of time in between writing and review process.

Let start the most important and easy English rules to make you're writing professional.

1. Capitalization

• The first word of the sentence must be capital. I won't go deep in this rule by you must practice this and must include it in your checklist.
• The first word of the quoted sentence must be capital, considering the previous rule of capitalization.
• Proper nouns must be capital. Proper nouns include the name of the person, name of a unique thing, and name of the place.
• The first word of the title must be capital. But the title of the book must be throughout the capital.
• Don’t capitalize the sentence ending with a colon. Exception, if you are explaining the points and describing there use, sentence after colon must start with a capitalized word.

2. Punctuation

• Full Stop(.): Mostly full stop is used at the end of the sentence but can also be used in numbers, abbreviations, and in the title of the person.

Note: Don’t use full stop while using the bullet points, here you are providing a list of items and items don’t require a full stop, the sentence requires a full stop.

• Comma(,): Comma can be used in a sentence to separate the independent clause, separate items from the list while presenting in a sentence, and after introductory clauses/phrases/words.
• Colon(:): You can use colon while introducing the list, between independent clauses, and to replace the Em dash.
• Hyphen(-): You can use the hyphen in two-word adjectives before nouns like rock-hard, 6-page, and 300–325. You can use a hyphen in the hyphenated compound words like Editor-in-chief and mother-in-law. Use hyphen after a word high and low, when makes sense like high-interest.
• Em dash ( — ): Em dash is magical punctuation that can replace parentheses, commas, colons, or quotation marks in a sentence.

Difference between hyphens (-), en dashes (–), and em dashes ( — ):

• A hyphen’s main job is to let the reader know that two or more words in a sentence are linked together.
• En dashes are used to show ranges.
• Em dashes can be used in place of commas, colons, semi-colons, or parentheses.

3. Active and passive voice

•Active voice:
An active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb. Sentences in the active voice have a strong, direct, and clear tone.
Example
The cashier counted the money.

•Passive voice:
Passive voice means that a subject is a recipient of a verb’s action. The passive voice is always constructed with a conjugated form of to be plus the verb’s past participle. This usually generates a preposition which makes it sounds complicated.
Example
The money was counted by the cashier.

4. Symbol

Do not replace the words with this symbol:

• & with and
• (-) with en dash or em dash
• (%) with percent or percentages

5. Spellings

While writing, confirm which English you are going to use US English or UK English.
Example:

• center=centre
• check=cheque
• criticize= criticise

6. Article

The, A and An

•The = definite article
Example
I just saw the most popular movie of the year.

•A/An = indefinite article
Note: Use an, with singular noun beginning with a vowel or nouns starting with silent “h“.

Example: a boy, an elephant, an hour.

7. Singular & Plural

• Add s
  Example
  bottle — bottles
  cup — cups
• Add es
  Example
  box — boxes
  watch — watches
• Change f to v
  Example
  wolf — wolves
  leaf — leaves
• Different words
  Example
  child — children
  woman — women
• No specific format for words
  ending with y and o
  Example
  baby — babies
  toy — toys
• Same word
  Example
  series — series
  species — species

8. Numbers

• You can use direct numbers for numbers after 10 and word for number zero to nine.
• Items require a number, use number instead of the word throughout like 6 pans,10 cakes, and 3 cans.
• The range must be written in a number like 10 to 100.

9. Sentence & Paragraph

• While writing sentences or paragraph you need to be specific and write to the point. Don’t explain more than one topic in the same sentence or paragraph, this will confuse your reader and point you want to make will be lost in description.
• Try to break the sentence or create different paragraphs whenever possible, it is an indication to the reader that the subject is changing.
• Use most commonly know words, if you are just showing off how much you know and try to use difficult words in your writing- the user will get tired of new & complex words and won't continue reading since they don’t want to sit with the dictionary while reading.
• While using Jargons, explain what it means in the short description of the topic.
• When using the abbreviation, mention the full form of it first then start using is often in the writing.
• Keep your average sentence length at a maximum of 14 words. A lower average would be better.