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Summary

Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, is a cloud computing company. Alibaba Cloud provides cloud computing services to online businesses and Alibaba Group’s own e-commerce ecosystem. As the cloud computing arm and business unit of Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud provides a comprehensive suite of global cloud computing services to power both international customers’ online businesses and Alibaba Group’s own e-commerce ecosystem. Alibaba Cloud offers high-performance, elastic computing power in the cloud. Services are available on a pay-as-you-go basis and include data storage, relational databases, big-data processing, Anti-DDoS protection and content delivery networks (CDN).

Simplified Technical English (STE) is a controlled language that is used to create technical content and documentation that are more easily understood by an international audience. While it makes sense to try to describe complex processes using Simplified Technical English, the paradigm shift is not always an easy one and technical writers would require formal training in STE at least.

This article shares in more detail how the Alibaba Cloud Content & Globalisation team can potentially benefit from the use of a controlled language like STE to offer outstanding local technical service capabilities to their customers. 

Process pain points

Existing documents are usually translated from Mandarin Chinese. Unclear information in the source language will often obscure the meaning in the corresponding English translation. To improve the quality of translation in the English text, it is therefore necessary to rewrite the content in its entirety. This is because keeping the original sentence and paragraph structure while trying to apply sound STE writing principles will make the technical writer’s job in this case extremely difficult. A crucial point to keep in mind is to ensure that all necessary information in the original document is faithfully rewritten in STE.

When everyone is required to clarify what the original content means before writing as well as appreciate the actual working principles behind, we are definitely going to see quality improvements! Alibaba Cloud Writer’s post-training feedback.

 

Based on feedback from technical writers, while writing in Standard English offers them the flexibility to keep information vague but convincing, the original technical content is not always complete or accurate. Clearly, this has changed when technical writers favour the use of a controlled language like Simplified Technical English over Standard English. Restrictions on word usage, sentence structure, and sentence lengths have compelled writers to rewrite their documents and present information with clarity and much less ambiguity. This is based on the premise that technical writers already possess a firm understanding of their products and services. In this manner, they can do away with the original formulation in Chinese, then describe the use of their products and services in a user-friendly way with the help of STE.

The customer’s journey

As is the practice in many companies worldwide, documents were created at the development stage before reaching techdocs. Vague wording, style, and tone of voice from Standard English have gradually influenced the way technical writers communicate with their audience in the long run. Consequently, it becomes challenging to fully distill the meaning behind technical content unless the user spends more time in reading the documentation again. This is a situation that could have been mitigated if technical writers clarified the content with the original content writers from the outset and started writing in STE sentences.

How the STE specification drives cohesion and consistency within technical writing teams

Because of vocabulary and writing rules standardisation, technical writers become more consistent on a word level that starts with the simple fact that they are going to use the same word whenever they refer to the same thing. This is especially important for a diverse team where the levels of language proficiencies and and understanding for technology are not the same. Here, STE may be the key to balance.

Summary

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. STE helps to make translations cheaper and more accurate. Often a formal requirement for aircraft and defence maintenance documentation, STE can easily be adapted to all technical industries and beyond. Ms. Shumin Chen will teach participants how to correctly and effectively use STE in practice. She will also address some of the mistakes commonly found in technical writing and the frequently incorrect use of common STE writing rules.

Course outline*

• Day 1: Classroom Training
  1. Practical overview of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English
  2. How STE helps both native & non-native speakers of English
  3. Benefits of adopting the STE international writing standard
  4. Writing rules and how to apply them in practice
  5. How to use the general vocabulary.

• Day 2: Application, Review, & Exercises
  1. Approved and non-approved words discussion and the rationale behind.
  2. How to deal with industry-specific terminology
  3. How to use STE for various documentation types
  4. How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation

• Day 3: Extended Writing Workshop
  1. Practical workshop session for applying STE rules to your own documents
  2. Review, edit, and discuss participants’ own documents to reinforce learning
  3. Classroom presentation of own documents.

* Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.

Learning how to optimally use a documentation standard like ASD-STE100 is a substantial boost to our technical writing team’s capabilities and significantly improved our compliance rating! Raja Sureshbabu, Global Head of Aerospace Vertical, Tata Consultancy Services.

Who should attend?

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

What training outcomes to expect?

Our interactive training, exercises and workshop, will teach participants to standardise content to:

• Author more efficiently
• Communicate more effectively with a global audience
• Improve operational safety
• Reduce AOG / downtime
• Facilitate modular writing and reuse
• Facilitate teamwork
• Facilitate translation
• Maximise consistency
• Optimise product lifecycle support
• Reduce the cost of creating and maintaining technical publications

Trainer’s qualifications

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 180 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.