October 2015 | Shufrans TechDocs Home // October 2015 | Shufrans TechDocs

Your Tactical Advantage | Emirates Defence Industries Company

Your Tactical Advantage | Emirates Defence Industries Company

STE as part of your global content strategy

Simplified Technical English as part of your content strategy

EDGE is creating opportunities in autonomous capabilities, directed energy, cyber-physical systems, advanced propulsion systems, robotics and smart materials, with artificial intelligence embedded across its products and services. Transforming how we live, and ensuring a more secure future, is what we do. Our mission is to bring innovative technologies and services to market with greater speed and efficiency.

ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) is a controlled language that is used to write technical manuals in such a way that they can be more easily understood by an international audience. To put it across plainly, STE is a form of controlled language that is guided by 53 technical writing rules that were put together by a committee of linguists, engineers, and manufacturers who established over the years that these writing rules made sense and allowed them to re-write any of their existing documentation based on these rules, making their documentation easier to understand, while maintaining accuracy, safety, and validity.

Develop, deploy, and deliver documentation with STE

STE Quick facts

Background: With the widespread dissemination of user documentation published in various delivery formats across several language translations, the relevance of global information management has become greater in an attempt to stem terminology inconsistencies, mistranslations, and the disproportionate escalation of costs associated with the maintenance, reuse, and consumption of technical content.

Year: In use since 1986

Current Version: Issue 8, May 2021.

Technical writing rules: 53

Dictionary word entries: approx. 2400 terms.

The STE specification also includes a core vocabulary of around 930 approved words and 1500 non-approved words that let technical authors write just about everything that they need for for procedural and descriptive texts. Therefore, the use of approved words, compliance with the standard, and a language quality checker tool to complement your content strategy efforts is akin to pooling your most valuable resources where people, internal processes, and innovative technologies become more aligned.

 

The role of technical authors and technical documentation managers

Technical writers are the go-between for subject-matter-experts (SMEs), engineers, designers and the end-users of documentation. Consequently, the responsibility of creating effective documentation falls on technical authors who will then endeavour to send out a clear, unambiguous, and user-friendly message about their products and line of services.

At the level of global information management, technical writing professionals should consider short-term tactics and longer-term strategies to overcome the following:

  • An ever-increasing volume of words to write and translate
  • Snowballing translation and documentation management costs
  • Overlapping information across different versions of similar document types
  • Low comprehension levels for the English language jargon.

STE in practice

If this is your first time hearing about STE, the example that follows will hopefully shed more light on the principles and best practices that govern good STE writing. Here is an original piece of text presented in standard English writing:

THE SYNTHETIC LUBRICATING OIL USED IN THIS ENGINE CONTAINS ADDITIVES WHICH, IF ALLOWED TO COME INTO CONTACT WITH THE SKIN FOR PROLONGED PERIODS, CAN BE TOXIC THROUGH ABSORPTION.

And here it is again in STE:

THE OIL IS POISONOUS. DO NOT GET THE ENGINE OIL ON YOUR SKIN.  IT CAN GO THROUGH YOUR SKIN AND INTO YOUR BODY.

Making the comparison between the two types of writing above, you will see that the original writing is rather cumbersome in expression. It is also very likely that the person reading this sentence will have difficulties following the writer’s line of thought because of the longer sentence length and unnecessary information included. In contrast, the text written in STE is much more to the point and simply distils what is pertinent to the person doing this work:

  1. The oil is poisonous.
  2. I must always be careful not to touch oil without protection.

From this example, STE shows us that warnings and cautions must always start with a simple and clear command that is usually substantiated by a reasoning that comes before or after.  A command informs the user about the precautionary measures to take to avoid danger. Presenting information as if it were a general comment in the original writing obscures the importance of the message and is not specific enough.

 

What customers are saying.. | NIMR Automotive

Thuraya Al Mehrzi, Production Engineer, NIMR Automotive
“Shumin gave a good introduction to Simplified Technical English. Instead of writing long sentences that are difficult to read, I prefer the STE rule of presenting long sentences in a list that makes it much easier to understand the work that is required to be completed. The STE exercises were pretty engaging, and this is particularly so for day 2 of the rewriting workshop that gave the team a lot of insight into our documentation. Trainees also had the opportunity to replace many unapproved standard English words with STE ones that helped us better appreciate the application of STE rules in a real-world context. This is a training that I have rated 10/10 for.”

Nour Bazuhair, Engineer Trainee, NIMR Automotive “The introduction to Simplified Technical English (STE) was simple to follow and understand. Rule 1.4 to use only the approved forms of verbs and adjectives from the STE dictionary is something that I appreciate very much. Applying the rules faithfully was a challenging albeit enjoyable process. There is a lot of good writing rules to learn here. I’ve found the exercises to be very useful for learning reinforcement, and they have helped me to apply STE rules in a more efficient manner and I’ve gained a much better understanding of STE as a result. Shumin’s training methodology is easy to follow, and she offers us great technical writing advice and has simplified the process for us. Every aspect of this training is a 10/10 for me.”

Abdel Alazeem Arafah, Service Coordinator, NIMR Automotive “This was a great course with very useful and practical knowledge for my work. Simplified Technical English (STE) encourages users to always refer to the approved list of verbs and nouns in the STE dictionary before writing their technical documentation. The active voice is also a very useful and powerful tool in sending loud and clear instructions to our users. Starting a warning or caution with a simple and clear command is also very crucial in my line of work. Shumin’s delivery of the training is highly organised, and she has been most patient with our comments, questions, and feedback the whole time.”

An innovative approach to consider for your global documentation landscape

Over the last three decades, STE has emerged as a rather important and universal standard for technical English. Predictably, as a result of language standardisation, STE helps us to achieve a number of benefits. Technical writers become more consistent on a word level. This starts with the simple fact that we are going to use the same word whenever we refer to the same thing, so that means an improved level of consistency and consequently quality improvements.

Where can I learn more about STE?

Shufrans TechDocs regularly hosts online training workshops for technical writers, SMEs, and engineers at different time zones for your convenience. To learn more about our diverse course offerings and workshop customisations that we can do for you and your global technical documentation team, speak to us today!

 

 

Content Connections 2015 by Acrolinx

Content Connections 2015 by Acrolinx

Content Connections - The virtual conference for content professionals 2015

Date: 5 November 2015

Location: Online Conference

Time: 10:00 AM to 05:00 PM CET

Register

Achieving Compliance and much more with Simplified Technical English (STE), by Shumin Chen at 01:50 PM CET

Safety starts with quality. The best product is only as good as its documentation and technical data allow the customer to make optimum use of it. Documentation is a vital and integral part of your product. Most crucially, the documentation needs to do its part to ensure the safe and correct use of the product by providing complete, accurate and effective information.

In this session, Shumin will highlight some of the key benefits and identify rules of STE that can help to address 99% of the main challenges behind documentation processes, such as high cost, ease of translation, damage to product, delayed time-to-market and inadequate customer support.

The advantages of STE are most evident when creating documentation that will be translated into a number of languages. Text in STE is easier to understand and may not even require translation. Where translation is needed, STE helps to drastically reduce translation cost and time-to-market, as it effectively eliminates redundant words and improves consistency. As the text volume is reduced by at least 20% and the remaining text becomes more repetitive, the use of STE typically results in 30 to 40% less translation cost.

With the ever increasing number of languages that companies need to deal with, the savings add up quickly. In other words, Simplified English pays for itself. Moreover, the time-to-market is reduced by a similar percentage. As content in STE is easier to validate, technical writers will be more productive and fewer iterations and less rework will be required.

 

Who should attend?

  • Compliance managers
  • CIO, COO, CTO
  • Customer support managers
  • Documentation managers
  • Editors
  • Engineering managers
  • Engineers and SMEs who create documentation
  • ILS managers
  • Maintenance managers
  • Operation managers
  • Product managers
  • Project managers
  • Quality managers
  • Technical writers
  • Translation managers
  • Translators.

About the speaker

Ms. Shumin Chen has a background in life sciences with a specialisation in biomedical sciences. She has worked as a consultant with customers in various industries worldwide, and is widely regarded as a leading expert in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English training, aviation documentation and multilingual documentation. In her current role with Shufrans TechDocs in Singapore, Shumin continues to focus on the practical implementation of international standards to facilitate the efficient creation and management of multilingual documentation.

Shumin now leads the ASD-STE100 training arm of Shufrans TechDocs. She received her professional on-the-job training in the field of STE under the tutelage of Dr Frans Wijma, a linguist, ILS consultant, documentation expert and private pilot who has been in the field of controlled language, multilingual documentation and aerospace & defence standards for 15 years.

Together as an experienced global team, they provided their combined knowledge and dedication to benefit customers worldwide. To date, they have provided training and consultancy services to over 170 companies.

 

ASD-STE100

 

 

Missed this session? The on-demand presentation is now available below.

 

 

Changing TC Market in a Changing World

Changing TC Market in a Changing World

Quick facts

Date: Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Time of event: 09:00 hrs – 18:00 hrs

Location: COEX Conference Room, Seoul, Korea

About the Conference

The 2015 KTCA Annual Conference takes place on Wednesday, 14 October, 2015. We cordially invite you to participate in a great number of premier events and  opportunities for networking experiences geared up for technical communication  professionals.

Our principal Simplified English trainer & consultant Ms. Shumin Chen will discuss the topic of ‘Optimising what is between the tags.’ In this session, Ms. Chen will highlight some of the key benefits and rules of STE that can help to address 99% of the main challenges behind documentation processes, such as high cost, ease of translation, damage to product, delayed time-to-market and inadequate customer support.

2015 KTCA Conference Programme

Start time End time Conference Room A (317) Conference Room B (318)
09:30 10:10 New Technologies that Change Our Life and Industry The trend of TC in Japan – Activities of Japanese Companies on the Changes of Market in Consumer and Industrial Manuals
Kwangsun Choi, Saltlux Kuroda Satoshi, ISE Japan
10:10 10:30 Tea break
10:30 11:10 How the Advance of Technology Affects TC Industry Chinese TC Market Status and Provision
Seokhwan Shin, President of KTCA Han Tao, CAS (China)
11:10 11:50 Development of Graphic Symbols and International Standards Optimise What is Between the Tags
Sokjin Jang, Standards Lab. of KTCA Shumin Chen, Shufrans TechDocs (Singapore)
11:50 13:10 Lunch
13:10 13:50 Korean Language Processing and Machine Translation in ICT Industry Solution for Glocal Contents
Seunghyun Seo, Wordwords SDL
13:50 14:30 3D Visual Communication with XVL (eXtensible Virtual world description Language) Total Solution for Structuring Contents: from Authoring to Publishing in a Solution
Dongsu Choi, Go Sato(AST, Lattice Technology) EKR & Saltlux
14:30 15:00 Tea break
15:00 15:40 Centralized Management of Content for Manual Development Why is a Game Company, Nexon Training their Customer Service Representatives on Writing Skills?
Seonbae Kim, HansemEUG Suki Song, Professional Writer
15:40 16:20 Content migration for structuring contents Intuitive Freedom is What Consumers Want in a User Guide
Jiyoung Kim, Saltlux Hijin Gim, Korean Language Institute
16:20 17:00 Analysis on UX in User Guides “Do you like sentences?” In defense of a liberal arts approach to technical editing
Minhye Lee, HansemEUG Seongil Lah, AST FACC
17:00 17:20 Event

 

Conference highlights

  • Simplified Technical English (STE) as the basis for global documentation
  • How to meet your business requirements cost-efficiently
  • Why the need for Simplified English?
  • The problems associated with the use of Standard English
  • A brief history of controlled languages
  • What is Simplified English?
  • The benefits of Simplified English
  • Some of the rules
  • STE textual analysis
  • STE business case study
  • How to get started with STE

About the speaker

Ms. Shumin Chen, principal trainer & consultant at Shufrans TechDocs received her professional on-the-job training in the field of STE under the tutelage of Dr Frans Wijma, a linguist and documentation expert. Together as an experienced global team, they provided their combined knowledge and dedication to benefit customers worldwide. To date, they have provided training and consultancy services to over 170 companies. Shufrans TechDocs is the only company with such vast experience in providing certified STE training.

Shumin has supported various companies with their STE and other documentation needs, based on standards where possible. Although STE was developed for the aerospace industry, more specifically for aircraft maintenance documentation, Shumin found that it made a lot of sense to apply the same principles to other industries and types of documents as well. Few -if any- changes to the specification are necessary to adapt STE to industries ranging from machinery to IT, automotive to medical equipment.