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Simplified Technical English as part of your content strategy

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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 safety, accuracy, and validity.

Develop, deploy, and deliver documentation with STE

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 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.. | HIAB Loader Cranes

VICTOR MARTINEZ YAGÜE, Certified STE Masterclass participant, Hiab Cranes SL “During the introduction to Simplified Technical English STE, Shumin explained to us the relevance of using a controlled English standard and how this could improve our documentation quality. We reviewed and discussed several STE and non-STE examples to help reinforce our learning and memory. Although the rewriting process of our documents was arduous, the trainer tried to make the learning process as enjoyable as possible. Overall, I liked the rewriting workshop and working group review because we got to apply our learning and practised writing in STE a lot. I’d most likely recommend this course to technical writers who are looking to advance, polish, or refine their STE writing skills as part of their career progression.”

Mauro Rovinetti, Technical Data Manager, Hiab – Effer loader cranes “The trainer’s delivery and introduction to Simplified English is very good as she helped us understand what the specification entails and its relevance to my work. The training workshop and overall delivery of Simplified Technical English content has been simply explained, yet complete and exhaustive. Clear English writing is the way to go also for a non-native English speaking audience who may have difficulty understanding the language at times.”

Ricardo Belsue, Technical Support & Documentation Engineer, HIAB Loader Cranes “The introduction to Simplified Technical English was quite useful for my understanding of what the specification entails and how it can be applied to our daily work, with very good materials shared during the workshop. I like STE rule.3.6 Use of active voice. Because sometimes it is not easy to identify when to use active or passive voice, mainly for non-native english speakers. With this rule, it makes more clear when you have to write technical texts.”

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!

**Course fee includes exercises, learning aids, certificate of completion, and 90-day post-training support.

I’ve found all the rules introduced in this workshop equally valuable and applicable in my field of work. The ASD-STE100 Specification is very useful for searching examples and finding STE compliant alternatives. It was also great that we has such a large number of practical exercises. Personally, it would be more valuable to have more context available. This helps us judge how to apply STE optimally. Thank you Shumin! Your workshop was concise, clear, and pragmatic. I also liked the occasional humour! 🙂 Diane Goodrick, Information Architect/ Author Trainer, Schindler Group.

Summary

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 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.
  6. Approved and non-approved words discussion and the rationale behind.

• Day 2: Application, Review, & Exercises
  1. How to deal with industry-specific terminology
  2. How to use STE for various documentation types
  3. How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation
  4. Practical workshop session for applying STE rules to your own documents
  5. Review, edit, and discuss participants’ own documents to reinforce learning
  6. 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.

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.

I will definitely recommend this training to writers of many fields, especially technical fields. The material, presentation, and instructor are fantastic. I learned a lot about ASD-STE. Even though I’ve been using this writing convention for almost eight years, formal training brought much clarity and comprehension that I had not previously realized. I now know that an aptitude for writing and a copy of the STE rules is a good start, but not enough. This course takes your understanding to a professional level. Lauren Gelli, Senior Technical Writer, Aerotech Inc.

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.

Why standardise?

Standardisation is widely practised in manufacturing to realise economy of scale at the product level. Why not apply standardisation to documentation?

Data standardisation is cost saving by common sense. Injuries, losses and costly legal liabilities can occur as a result of unclear documentation and ambiguous translations. Just like the manufacturing industry makes use of standard components in their product assembly line, Simplified Technical English uses standard vocabulary in the ASD-STE100 specification and consistent industry-/product specific terminology to create documentation.

The borrowed concept of standardisation in the engineering world when translated into the technical documentation industry is based on standardised terminology and simple grammar rules.

The latter for instance, promotes the use of the active voice and simple present tense to clearly identify the doer of a particular action so as to avoid miscommunication and ambiguous translations during the localisation process. In a nutshell, we can draw a parallel between grammar rules and SOPs that both share a common purpose in streamlining processes in a straightforward and objective manner.

What is STE, and how does STE differ from Standard English and how do I know if this is right for my industry?

ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) is an international standard that helps to make technical documentation easy to understand. Simplified Technical English standardises vocabulary, grammar and style, while letting users control their specific terminology. Although Simplified Technical English originates from the aerospace and defence industries, it can easily be customised and applied to any other industry, including machinery, automotive, electronics, IT and medical equipment. Major manufacturers and the S1000D standard require the use of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English.

Simplified Technical English pays for itself

Our customer is a manufacturer of mobile X-ray based imaging solutions. They created an operator manual and a service manual in Standard English. This manual is to be translated into 7 other languages.

Before using Simplified English, the manuals had a total word count of 67,300 words. The number of pages was 454. In Simplified English, the word count came down to 49,600 words. The page count was reduced to 406.

Text in Simplified Technical English is easier to understand and may not even require translation. Where translation is needed, Simplified Technical English helps to drastically reduce translation cost and time-to-market, as it effectively eliminates redundant words and improves consistency.

The company thus saves almost EUR 21,000 or 35% on the translation of these manuals. For subsequent manuals, the savings would increase further thanks to better re-use and yield from translation memory.

With the ever increasing number of languages that companies need to deal with, these savings add up quickly. As content in Simplified Technical English is easier to validate, technical writers will be more productive, and fewer iterations and less rework will be required.

For this reason, the time-to-market is reduced by a similar percentage.

Editorial note: Based on feedback from readers, we would like to clarify that the cost reduction above is based on statistics from standard commercial memory tools, i.e. re-use on the sentence (segment level). This is brought by a combination of consistent style, vocabulary and terminology.